
COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




Rev. SAMUEL R. GAMMON, D. D., 

Lavaras, Brazil. 
Missionary of the Southern Presbyterian Church. 



THE EVANGELICAL INVASION 
OF BRAZIL: 



OR 



A HALF CENTURY OF EVANGELICAL 

MISSIONS IN THE LAND OF THE 

SOUTHERN CROSS. 



BY 



SAMUEL R. GAMMON, D. D.. 
w 

For Tnventy Years Missionary of 

the Southern Presbyterian 

Church in Brazil. 



RICHMOND, VA.: 

Presbyterian Committee of Publication. 






Copyright 

BY 

R. E. MAGILL, 

Secretary of Publication, 
igio. 



Printed by 
Whittet & Shepperson 
Richmond, Va. 



(LCLA280629 



^^ 



? 



To the memory of her who, from childhood 
up, in all relations of life, exemplified the 
beauty and the strength of the gospel ; 
who, with gladness of heart, gave fourteen years 
of joyous and fruitful service to the winning of 
Brazil for Christ ; whose memory abides as a rich 
fragrance wherever she was known in Brazil and 
in the homeland ; 

To the memory of 

TMiUit Sumpijreps; Gammon, 

This book is dedicated as a loving tribute 
by her husband. 

The Autjior. 



PREFACE. 



South America seems to be coming into her own. The 
"Neglected Continent" has at last attracted the atten- 
tion of the world. Formerly, one never saw a magazine 
article about South American countries and affairs; but 
within recent years, she has had her share of them. 
Travelers who formerly knew of only one tourist's 
route — that which follows the sun — have now learned 
that certain roads lead north and south; and not a few 
long to ''Round the Horn." This revival of interest, or 
to be more acurate, this birth of interest has affected 
the students of Missions, too, and recently, when Dr. 
Gammon spent a few months in the United States, he 
was urged by pastors, by leaders of Missions Study 
Classes, and by the Secretaries of Mission Boards, to 
prepare a book giving some account of Brazil as a Mis- 
sion field, a;nd telling the story of "Missions in the Land 
of the Southern Cross." 

It was the purpose of Dr. Gammon to prepare a 
volume which would present not only the work of the 
Southern Presbyterian Church with which he is con- 
nected, but would be serviceable as a text book in the 
hands of all the denominations now represented in the 
mission work in Brazil. The time of preparation allowed 
him being so short, and mission stations in Brazil being 
distant from each other, it was impossible to secure data 
as complete as was desired; but the reader will still find 
that the author's purpose was quite fully realized. Mem- 



6 Preface 

bers of all evangelical churches will find interesting in- 
formation concerning their own work in Brazil, as well 
as general information concerning the land and the peo- 
ple, and the needs of evangelical missionary effort. The 
detailed statistics of each mission's work as far as they 
could be secured, will be found in the Appendix 
ai ranged in compact form. A map giving the location of 
most of the mission stations adds greatly to the com- 
pleteness of this feature of the work. 

It was the author's hope to have the work appear 
during the summer of 1909, inasmuch as the subject of 
special study in connection with the Young People's 
Missionary Movement, and with the Woman's United 
Study Course would be during the Fall and Winter, 
South America. The issue of the book during 1909 
would also have been timely, because the year 1909 
marks the semi-centennial of the beginning of Presby- 
terian mission work in Brazil, and so this would be pre- 
eminently the time to call the attention of Evangelical 
Christendom to the needs of the great Southern Re- 
public. For reasons which need not be detailed, the pub- 
lication has been delayed somewhat so as to put it early 
in 1910. 

The work in its original plan had the hearty approval 
of the Executive Committee of Foreign Missions of the 
Southern Presbyterian Church, and it was largely 
through the encouragement of the Secretaries of Mis- 
sions, Drs. Chester and Reavis, that Dr. Gammon con- 
sented to undertake so arduous a task. After the book 
was put into the hands of the Presbyterian Committee 
of Publication to prepare for the press, it was found that 
considerable revision of some parts of the work would 



Preface 7 

be necessary in order to give the book its final shape. 
It would have been far better if this revision could have 
been done by the author himself, but Brazil and Rich- 
mond are far apart, and time was precious, so it was 
left to the Editorial Superintendent of Publication, the 
present writer, to do this necessary work of revision. 
This has given him an opportunity to become very 
thoroughly acquainted with the book which follows, and 
he considers it an honor and a privilege to have had this 
slight connection with it. 

The reader will find the book thoroughly enjoyable 
from beginning to end. It furnishes in very brief, yet 
fascinating form, just the information we want to have 
about the geography, the natural resources, the history 
of the country and the character of the people. It will 
be specially interesting to the student of missions as fur- 
nishing a much needed text book upon Missions in 
Brazil; not confined in its scope to any one denomina- 
tion, it affords the knowledge which very many desire 
upon the work of all the evangelical denominations there. 
One special point of interest about the book is its fair 
and dispassionate, yet powerful presentation of the need 
for missionary work in Brazil, and indeed, in all Roman 
Catholic countries. Taken all in all. Dr. Gammon fur- 
nishes a strong plea, both for the continuance and wider 
extension of "The Evangelical Invasion" of our sister 
Republic in the South. He thrills us with the story of 
what Protestant Missions have already accomplished, 
and issues a trumpet call to continue and enlarge the 
work. 

R. A. Lapsley 

Richmond, Va. 



CONTENTS, 



CHAPTER I: THE LAND. 

Rio and its Environs — Physical Characteristics of the Coun- 
try — The Mountain Ranges dividing the country into 
three great Physical, Divisions and into four Hydro- 
graphic Basins ; the Amazon Region, the La Plata Re- 
gion, and the Oriental Region containing avo hydro- 
graphic shub-divisions — ^the Sao Francisco Valley and the 
Seaboard Section — the Geology and Mineral Wealth — 
the Flora — the Fauna — Chief Products : Cereals, Lumber, 
Cotton, Cane, Rubber, Coffee, Cattle — Possibilities of 
great Commercial and Industrial Development: all the 
Material Resources, Means of Transportation, Popula- 
tion, Climatic Conditions 13 

CHAPTER H: THE PEOPLE. 

Component Elements of Population : Indians, Europeans 
Africans — Four Classes: Pure Whites, Pure Blacks,'Pure 
Indians, Mixed Race — Proportions of Each — Number of 
Inhabitants — the Brazilian Physically : His Size, his 
Food, his Dress — His Characteristics : Courteous, Oblig- 
ing, Emotional, Demonstrative, Mentally Alert and Pre- 
cocious — Their Literature, Journalism — the Brazilian pre- 
fers Towrn to Country Life, the Club to the Home — the 
Brazilians a Nation of Diplomats — Brazil a Country of 
Contrasts — Her Future 32 



10 Contexts 

CHAPTER III: THEIR HISTORY. 
Three Periods : Colonial Brazil. 1500-1822 — ^the Capitanias 
Independent — the Central Authority. Governors-general 
— the French Invasion and Colonies — the Spanish Dom- 
ination — the Dutch Invasion — ^Republican Conspiracy of 
the Eighteenth Century — ^Tiradentes — ^Brazil a Kingdom 
of the Royal Family — Imperial Brazil, 1822-1889 — ^^Tinde- 
pendence or Death" — ^Reign of Pedro I. — Reign of Pedro 
n. — Paraguayan War, Emancipation, Bloodless Revolu- 
tion of 1889 — ^Republican Brazil — ^^lilitary Regime, Civil 
Regime 49 

CIL\PTER R': THE XATI^XS NEED— BR,\ZIL AS A 

MISSION FIELD. 

The Skepticism as to Brazil's Need — Eftect? of R:!r'r.:?m 
after Four Centuries : Unbelief s. :: 1 5 u^ t r 5 : i . : : r. — R : .r. e 
Responsible — ^Her Docrines Drive Men intc Skepticism — 
Her Attitude toward Free and Progressive Institutions 
has same e5e:: — Rome's Influence Seen in Brazil: espe- 
cially in Ecuador — Her Influence on Moral Life of 
People 68 

CHAPTER V: THE NATION'S NEED— BRAZIL AS A 
MISSION FIELD (Continued). 

Rome Leads the L'n.ertered ^Masses into Superstition and 
Idolatry — ^In its Form. Romanism is Pagan — Romanism 
Compared with Buddhism, with Pagan Rome's Religion, 
with Religion of Aztecs of Mexico— Relation between 
Romanism and Paganism of Babylon — ^L^ity of all Man- 
made Religions — ^Rome Pagan also in Spirit : Her Teach- 
ings Subversive of Fundamental Doctrines of Biblical 
Christianity — Specimens of Devotional and Sermonic 
Literature of Rome — ^Brazil Needs the Gospel, and can 
get it only through the work of Evangelical Missions. . . S6 



Contents ii 

CHAPTER VI: THE EVANGELICAL INVASION OF 
BRAZIL— THE FORCES IN ACTION. 

The French Huguenots in the Bay of Rio — the Dutch in 
Pernambuco — Modern Missions : Methodists in 1835 — 
Dr. Kalley, 1855 — Presbyterians in 1859 — Southern Pres- 
byterians in 1869 — Southern Methodists in 1876 — South- 
ern Baptists in 1882 — Episcopalians in 1889 — South 
American Evangelical Mission — Rev. Jushtus Nelson — 
the Young Men's Christian Association — the Bible Socie- 
ties — the Work wisely begun and wisely developed — an 
Unusual Policy 106 

CHAPTER VII : THE FRUITS OF VICTORY. 

Fifty Years Ago and Now — Presbyterians, Northern and 
Southern — Independent Presbyterians — Methodist Vic- 
tories — Baptist Trophies — Episcopal Successes — Other 
Victories of Other Forces — ^the Native Churches — A 
Native Congregation — Rio — Publication Work of Mis- 
sions: the Papers — Educational Work, Presbyterian — 
Methodist — Baptist — Invisible Results that Cannot be 
Tabulated 124 

CHAPTER VIII: PAPAL BRAZIL'S APPEAL TO 
PROTESTANT AMERICA. 

Reinforcements Needed — Enlarged Equipment — Brazil asks 
Help from America — Not Lion's Share, but Her Just 
Share — the Commercial Bonds Emphasize the Appeal — 
Political Affinity adds Emphasis to It — Brazil's Part in 
the Future of America and the World Emphasizes 
It — America Final Battle-ground between Papal and 
Protestant Christianity — Brazil's Spiritual Hunger is 



12 Contents 

Brazil's Call — Brazil our Samaria — Brazil's Special Claim 
on Protestant America — ^the Success of the Work 
Strengthens the Appeal — Recapitulation 198 

Appendix I, — Statistics, 169 

Appendix 11. — Missionaries and the Native Church, 173 

Appendix III. — Industrial Education, 177 




Rev. EDWARD LANE, D. D., 
Pioneer Missionary of the Southern Presbyterian Church. 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE COUNTRY. 



The stranger, on his first visit to Rio, as he sweeps 
around one of those graceful curves of the matchless bay, 
will receive a distinctly pleasant impression as he comes 
suddenly into a small but beautiful public garden, and 
sees in the centre of it a handsome bronze monument 
standing upon its gray pedestal of granite. This monu- 
ment was unveiled in 1900 to commemorate the discovery 
of Brazil just four centuries before. The central figure 
of the group is Pedro Alvares Cabral who, in the year 
of grace 1500, gave to Portugal and to the world a vast 
empire in the western hemisphere. Cabral, following 
in track of his illustrious countryman, Vasco da Gama, 
was sailing from Portugal to India. Advised by his 
king, Dom Manuel, to veer to the west so as to avoid, 
the calms off the coast of Africa, he was caught by the 
equatorial current and borne across the Atlantic. On 
the twenty-second day of April, he sighted a mountain 
near the coast of what is now the southern part of the 
State of Bahia. Two days later an excellent port was 
found, and the mariners went ashore. After ten days, 
Cabral proceeded on his way to India, sending back to 
Portugal one of his ships to announce to his monarch 
the discovery of the new land. 



14 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

Our navigator supposed that he had found an island, 
and he named it ''the Island of the True Cross," Little 
did he dream that the land he had discovered was part 
of a vast continent, and that it was to become the home 
of a great nation owning one-fifth of the American 
continent and a fifteenth part of the land surface of the 
globe, of a people destined to play an important part 
in the world's history. 

(In the pages that follow, the reader will be made 
acquainted with this wonderful land and with its attrac- 
tive people. He will be asked to consider the religious 
conditions and needs of the people ; and will be informed 
as to what has been done and what should be done to 
meet these moral and spiritual needs and to plant in the 
nation's heart that tree whose leaves are for the nation's 
healing.) 

The majority of those who visit Brazil receive their 
first, most pleasing and most abiding impression of the 
physical beauties of the country from their entrance into 
the bay of Rio, and no book that attempts to speak of 
Nature's pleasant moods, as revealed here, can fail to 
mention the charm of that wonderful harbor. What 
must have been the impression of Amerigo Vespucci, who 
came as pilot, if not as commander, of the first two 
expeditions sent by Dom Manuel to explore the country 
discovered and reported by Cabral, if he forced the prow 
of his ship through the narrow opening between Sugar- 
loaf Mountain on the left and the bluff promontory of 
Santa Cruz on the right, and rode into that most beau- 
tiful of bays? The mariners entered the bay on the 
first day of January, and as they sailed through its 
narrow entrance they supposed they were entering a 
river. In commemoration of the day, they called it 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 15 

"o rio de Janeiro" — the River of January — and the mis- 
nomer has held good ever since. 

The bays of Naples, Sydney and Rio are confessedly 
the world's most beautiful harbors. The saying "See 
Naples and die" has become classic; but if human art 
has done more to beautify the Italian; port, Nature's 
hand was more lavish at Rio. Well does the writer 
remember the day, almost twenty years ago, when he 
stood upon the top of Corcovoda — a mountain peak in 
the suburbs of Rio — and drank in the wondrous and 
varied beauty of that incomparable scene. Such a com- 
bination of earth and sea and sky, of busy human mart 
and calm and restful mountain view will hardly be found 
elsewhere. On one hand, to the north and west, the 
city with its busy life and gay coloring, and the bay 
dotted with islands and alive with its shipping lay at 
the traveller's feet, while in the distance the Organ 
Mountains in their indigo hues and with their bold sharp 
pinnacles piercing the sky formed the background of 
the picture. On the other hand, to the east and south, 
the majestic ocean stretched away until the blue of the 
sea was mingled with the blue of the sky. 

But not all of Brazil is like Rio and its environs. 
There are many beautiful and picturesque landscapes, 
but there are also many stretches of dreary and unat- 
tractive country. The country, speaking generally, of- 
fers the same contrast, as compared with the United 
States, that the United States offers, as compared with 
England. There are great stretches of outlying, uncared 
for lands, and this gives to the country that unkept, un- 
finished, or even neglected appearance common to new 
and sparsely populated lands. The impression received 
as we look upon the broad expanse is very pleasing; 



i6 The Evangelical Ixvasiox of Brazil 

but when we examine a smaller part of the landscape in 
minute detail, we often find it disappointing. There are 
sections of the country under a very high state of culti- 
vation; but speaking of the country generally, it may be 
said that we miss the clean smooth meadows, the well 
tilled fields, the finished lawn, the velvet sward. 

The forests are decidedly disappointing. The dense 
wall or expanse of green is very pleasing and restful to 
the eye when seen in the distance ; but when approached, 
it proves to be an impenetrable jungle matted with 
tangled vines and undergrowth. The impression received 
in school-boy days when we studied geography and 
read of the naked Indian cutting his way with difficult}' 
through these tangled virgin forests is strictly accurate. 
In the virgin forests, in many parts of Brazil, splendid 
forest giants are to be found, and in the Amazon region, 
many of them rival the red-woods of California. But 
ordinarily we find fewer handsome trees in the forests 
of Brazil than in those of Xorth .\merica; and when 
they are found, they are so covered over with vines and 
so hidden by the undergrowth that we are unable to 
enjoy their stately beauty. 

The traveller who sails along the eastern coast of 
Brazil will get the impression that the country is exceed- 
ingly mountainous. It is not so much so, however, as 
it appears. A range of mountains skirts the coast most 
of the way from Pemambuco to the extreme south, 
and there are many other ranges, as will presently ap- 
pear; but back from the coast, and in the northern and 
western parts of the country there are immense plains. 
Alost of the land in Brazil, though, is more than a thou- 
sand feet above the sea level. 

The mountain systems of Brazil are very interesting. 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 17 

and one of them offers the only exception to an almost 
invariable rule. As a rule, the mountains of the New 
World presents a striking contrast to those of the 
Old. In the Old World, almost all of the more impor- 
tant mountain chains follow the general course of east 
and west, while all of those in the New, with a single 
exception, run north and south. The single exception 
to this rule is the Parima chain, running along the north- 
ern border of Brazil, separating it from the Guyanas, 
Venezuela, and Columbia, and dividing the waters of 
the great Amazon basin from those of the Orinoco and 
the Caribbean watershed, generally. 

On the extreme west, the ice-crowned peaks of the 
Andes cast their shadows across the deep valleys of the 
border-land between Brazil and her western neighbors — 
Peru and Bolivia. 

Mention has already been made of the Serra do 
Mar that runs parallel with the coast from the borders 
of Pernambuco to Rio Grande do Sul, now and again 
coming right down to the coast and bathing its feet in 
the ocean's brine, and at other times receding to the dis- 
tance of a hundred miles. In some places the summit 
of the mountains is so' close to the shore that rainfall ten 
miles away crosses great states, and finally reaches its 
ocean home through the La Plata at Montevideu. Run- 
ning parallel with this coast range, and finally merging 
itself into the longer range in the state of Sao Paulo, near 
the great seaport town of Santos, is the Serra do Espln- 
hago (the backbone), the highest of Brazil's ranges 
except the Andes. The peak of Itatiaia, only about ten 
thousand feet high, but the loftiest of Brazil's moun- 
tains, is in this Espinhago chain. This peak is seen to 
fine effect as the tourist travels by rail from Rio to 



i8 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

Sao Paulo; only a few miles from the railroad, it lifts 
its stately head as it stands guard over the beautiful 
valley of the Parahyba do Sul. 

The most interesting of Brazil's mountains ranges, 
however, is the Serra das Vertentes (chain of the water- 
sheds), so called because it forms the dividing ridge be- 
tween the great river basins of Brazil and of the states 
south. This low mountain chain, beginning near the 
coast on the northeast, describes a vast and irregular 
semi-circle, sweeping clear across the great country, and 
finally losing itself in the foot-hills of the Andes. 

These mountain chains divide Brazil into three great 
physical sections, and into four hydrographic basins. A 
glance at the map will show these physical divisions and 
these river basins in clear and easy outline. 

First, we have in the north the Amazon Region or the 
Amazon basin. To this basin belongs also the river 
Tocantins, which mingles its waters with those of the 
mighty Amazon as they together pour their floods into 
the Atlantic. This river basin, stretching from the 
Andes to the sea, and from the Parima mountains, five 
degrees north of the equator, to latitude sixteen or 
seventeen south, contains more than half of Brazil's ter- 
ritory, is the largest river basin in the world, and forms 
the most extensive network of inland navigation on 
the globe. 

Answering to the Amazon Region in the north, and 
separated from it by the low range of the Vertentes, lies 
the La Plata basin in the south. This mighty river takes 
the name of La Plata when it receives its last tributary, 
the Uruguay, only a few miles above Buenas Ayres. 
Through most of its course of more than two thousand 
miles, it is known as the Parana : its head waters are the 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 19 

Rio Grande, which takes its rise on the slopes of Itatiaia, 
already mentioned as the highest peak in Brazil. 

The third section of Brazil is the Oriental, east of 
the Coast Range in the south and of the Serra das 
Vertentes in the north. This section is quite narrow 
from Rio south; but from Rio north it widens out and 
embraces quite a large part of north and north-central 
Brazil. It includes two of the four hydrographic divi- 
sions of thq country — namely, the Basin of the Sao 
Francisco river, and the seaboard section, which is sub- 
divided into a number of secondary river basins, whose 
waters run directly east to the Atlantic. The Sao Fran- 
cisco is a noble stream, having its basin shut in on the 
south and west by the Serra des Vertentes and on the 
east by the Serra do Espinhago, it flows north for more 
than a thousand miles, draining the larger part of the 
great states of Minas, Bahia and Pernambuco; then 
turning abruptly east and south, it seeks its ocean home. 

In connection with the mountain systems, it will be 
well that something be said of Brazil's geology and min- 
eral wealth. Brazil's geological history has not been 
sufficiently studied, and little that is satisfactory has 
been written on the subject. An able commission, ap- 
pointed by the federal government, is now at work on 
the abundant and interesting materials, and large and 
valuable results may be looked for. 

In the mountain chains of the country, we find in 
abundance the two great systems of rocks — ^the lauren- 
tian and the huronian. In the Serra do Mar and in the 
southern part of the Serra do Espinhago the older for- 
mation — the laurentian — abounds, or is found exclu- 
sively. Here we find large deposits of iron, and most 
of the varieties of precious stones are taken from the 



20 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

mountains where the laurentian formation predominates. 
The other mountain ranges of central Brazil belong to 
the huronian series; and here it is that the inexhaustible 
treasures of iron, the rich deposits of gold, the priceless 
diamond and the topaz are all found. Most, if not all of 
the Parana basin belongs to the carboniferous age, as do 
other parts of Brazil, as well. But in spite of this fact, 
the country is still dependent, in large measure, upon im- 
ported coal. In all of the southern states — Sao Paulo, Pa- 
rana, Santa Catherina and Rio Grande do Sul, coal mines 
are to be found; but only in two last-named states have 
these mines been worked to any considerable extent, and 
even there it seems to be a question still as to whether 
or not coal-mining will become an enterprise of vast 
proportions and of great profit. Coal-mines are said to 
exist also in the mountains on the extreme western 
borders of Matto Grosso. 

Even in early colonial days Brazil's mineral wealth 
was known to be great. Early settlers from Sao Paulo 
and Rio journeyed to the interior of Minas, opened 
mines, and carried back their golden treasure. For more 
than a century, during the colonial period, streams of 
wealth from the gold mines of Minas poured into the 
treasury of Portugal to enrich the mother country. Not- 
withstanding this, the vast mineral wealth of Brazil may 
be said to remain practically untouched. Whole moun- 
tains of iron ore of the finest quality, rich veins of gold, 
and precious stones in inexhaustible quantities await 
the coming of wealth and of enterprise for their devel- 
opment, to the enriching of Brazil and the world. 

The limits of this book preclude anything like a full 
account of the wonderful flora. The fact that it is a 
tropical country, and one of great rainfall, would natur- 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 21 

ally suggest that the flora would be rich and varied. 
Most of the fruits and vegetables of the torrid zone, 
and many of those of temperate climes, are to be found 
in Brazil, and the fertile soil produces them in great 
abundance. An entire chapter would be needed to de- 
scribe the beauties of the orchids that abound in the 
forests of Brazil; another would be required to tell of 
the hard-woods, some of them so heavy that they sink 
in water; and it would read like a fairy tale were the 
story told of houses in which rosewood was used for 
sills and sleepers and door-posts; another chapter still 
would be taken up with an account of the medicinal 
plants and the dye-woods that abound in the forests. It 
was one of these dye-woods, giving a brilliant red color 
much like the color of a live coal — "braza" in Portu- 
guese — ^that gave the name Brazil to the country dis- 
covered by Cabral, and called first Vera Cruz and later 
Santa Cruz. With comparatively little labor, flower 
gardens become dreams of beauty, and as the rainy 
season comes on, the fields are sometimes all but carpeted 
with wild flowers of the most brihiant hues. 

Brazil's fauna, like her flora, is vast and varied. The 
domestic animals are those commonly seen in Europe and 
in North America; the savage beasts that roam the 
jungles of Africa and Asia are unknown. Wild game, 
both large and small, of the finny as well as of the feath- 
ered and furred varieties, is found in greater or less 
abundance in almost every part of the country; and very 
frequently, as ''the gray dawn is breaking," "the horn 
of the hunter is heard on the hill." 

The most conspicuous representatives, however, of 
Brazil's fauna — the most conspicuous both for number 
and aggressiveness — are those belonging to the class 



22 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

that may be characterized as pestiferous insects. 
The flying, the hopping and the crawhng varieties 
are all found in distressing abundance; and often- 
times, in spite of one's efforts at self control, his 
finger tips, as the Ayrshire bard would phrase it, 
''will be notice taking." A much-traveled lady recently 
"touring" South America told a good story of efforts in 
an Italian hotel to escape these small but enterprising 
assailants. That story could be duplicated and improved 
on by residents in Brazil. 

One of the questions most frequently asked in the 
States of the visitor from Brazil is : What is the prin- 
ciple product of Brazil? A question more difficult to 
answer could hardly be asked. What would the man 
from the States answer, if asked in Europe, what is the 
principal product of his country? If he were from 
Louisiana, he would probably answer, "sugar-cane" ; if 
from South Carolina, he would say "cotton" ; if from 
Illinois,' his answer might be "corn" ; and if from some 
other parts, he might say "wheat." In a country as 
large as Brazil, there is naturally a great variety of 
products, and what is the principal product in one section, 
is not the principal thing in another. 

In some of the southern states, Parana for example, 
the pine forests have become a very important source of 
revenue; in many parts of the country, within the last 
few years, the cultivation of rice has become a very im- 
portant item; in the state of Bahia, tobacco and cotton 
are the staple products; while in Pernambuco cotton 
and especially sugar-cane, hold the first place. 

Among the most important of Brazil's articles of ex- 
port is rubber, and the production of rubber is the great 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 23 

source of wealth in a large part of the Amazon Valley. 
There are a number of rubber-producing trees in Brazil, 
and one or another of these varieties is found in almost 
all of the states from Sao Paulo northward. But the 
great rubber region is the upper Amazon and its tribu- 
taries, where vast forests of the seringueira — the most 
valuable of all the rubber trees — stretch away in every 
direction, especially to the south. It is stated in a book 
quite recently published, "The New Brazil," by Mrs. 
Marie Robinson Wright, that the rubber-producing 
area of Brazil covers about a million square miles, or 
almost one-eighth of the entire territory. What fabulous 
sources of wealth lie hidden in those forests ! What 
marvelous possibilities of development of this great in- 
dustry when an eighth of Brazil's territory will produce 
rubber to advantage! 

"Sermgueira" is the name given to the rubber-tree 
of the Amazon Valley, and the forest is called a "serin- 
gal." It is said that the Indians called the tree "hevi" ; 
hence the first botanical name "hevea guianensis" given 
by the scientist who first studied it in Guayana and in- 
troduced it to the world ; hence also the modern botanical 
name "hevea braziliensis." Mrs. Wright, in her book, 
describes it as a handsome tree, resembling "the Euro- 
pean ash in both trunk and foliage." 

Dr. Francis Clark, in his book "The Continent of 
Opportunity," calls Brazil "the world's coffee-cup." So 
it is, and however much may be said and written of the 
seringueira with its graceful trunk, its foliage, its blos- 
soms and its useful rubber, the coffee-tree will ever hold 
its place in the imagination of men as the national sym- 
bol oi Brazil ; for unquestionably civilized man thinks 
far more of what he drinks for his breakfast than of 



24 The Evangelical Ixvasion of Brazil 

what he wears to protect his shoes from the mud or 
his shoulders from the showers. 

The richest gold-mines of Brazil have not been found 
in the bowels of the earth, but in the coffee orchards on 
her hill-slopes and mountain-sides. Three-fourths of the 
world's coffee is grown in Brazil, and no small part of 
the world's good-cheer comes from its coffee cup. The 
centre of the coft'ee cultivation in Brazil is in the state 
of Sao Paulo, but in the adjoming states of Rio and 
!Minas, as well as in Sao Paulo, the coffee orchards 
flourish; and throughout the central part of the eastern 
section of the country, hundreds of millions of these 
shapely little trees adorn the hill and mountain-sides, 
Coft'ee is pre-eminently Brazil's export crop, amounting 
to about three times the value of the rubber, which comes 
in the second place among the exports. The value of 
the annual export amounts to more than a hundred mil- 
lion dollars. 

At any time, a well-kept coft'ee orchard is an inter- 
esting and an attractive sight. The trees are planted 
in long straight rows, and, when full grown, have an 
average height of from twelve to fifteen feet. The tree 
is rather cylindrical in shape, its long, slender and nimble 
branches droop gracefully almost to the ground. Ordi- 
narily, the coft'ee orchard has had no cultivation, the 
planter's only care being to keep the ground clear of 
weeds and grass ; but now m^any think it of great advan- 
tage to have the ground lightly plowed from time to time. 

At all times, the coffee orchard is attractive ; when in 
full leaf, the mass of dark glossy green is restful to the 
eye, and beautiful. When the fruit is ripening, the ber- 
ries — some green, some bright yellow and some brilliant 
red — add a distinct charm, as they mingle with the green 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 25 

foliage. But when the orchard is in full flower — then 
it is that we have indeed a thing of beauty. The long, 
graceful branches are often a mass of beautiful white 
bloom. The blossom is a small, white jasmine-shaped 
flower, with a bit of yellow in the centre. It exhales 
a delicate fragrance that is delightful. 

The orange blossom is the traditional flower for the 
bridal wreath; but a branch from the coffee-tree in full 
flower, gracefully bent into the proper shape, would 
make an ideal nuptial crown. The fashionable belle 
could wish for no more beautiful or fragrant diadem 
for her wedding day. The coffee bloom should be chosen 
as the national flower of Brazil. 

But when all has been said that can be said for the 
beauty and the value of the seringueiras of the Amazon 
Valley and for the coffee-trees of Sao Paulo and Minas, 
if we are looking for the most important of Brazil's 
source of wealth, we shall have to give the first place 
to the meek-eyed bovine that lends his neck to his master 
for draft purposes, gives his flesh to his master for food, 
and leaves behind him his skin for his master's foot- 
wear. Rubber is a valuable industry in the Amazon 
Valley, or in one-eighth of Brazil's territory; coffee 
orchards flourish in the central mountain section of east- 
ern Brazil; but herds of cattle are found everywhere. 
They roam the vast plains of the interior regions, and 
graze on the hillsides of the great agricultural sections 
of the country. Everywhere cattle are to be found, and 
everywhere they constitute a more or less important 
source of revenue. 

It requires no prophetic vision to foresee a wonderful 
commercial and industrial development for this highly 
favored land of Brazil. The country abounds in all the 



26 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

natural resources necessary thereto. It was the cele- 
brated scientist, Louis Agassiz, who predicted that the 
centre of the world's civilization would one day be found 
in the Amazon Valley. Whether this prophecy is ever 
fulfilled or not, the day of prosperity and power seems 
near at hand for Brazil. 

Reference has already been made to the value of the 
pine forests of the southern states of Brazil, where the 
lumber industry is becoming an important one. But 
there are other and more valuable timbers in the land 
than the Parana pines. The forests all over the country, 
and especially those immense ones on the Amazon and 
its tributaries, have inexhaustible supplies of the finest 
of hard woods; they must attract attention, sooner or 
later, and an enterprise of vast proportions will be 
developed. 

Allusion has been made, too, to the mineral resources. 
They are equal, probably, to those of any other country, 
and these buried treasures only wait the coming of labor 
and capital. The richest of all the resources, however, 
are the agricultural. A celebrated scientist of the last 
century said that the Amazon region alone would pro- 
duce food supply for the population of the globe, and yet 
the Amazon region is only about half of Brazil's area. 
The country produces all that is needed to supply the 
necessaries, the comforts, and many of the luxuries of 
life, and where all of these elements exist in such mar- 
velous abundance, a civilization of vast agricultural and 
industrial wealth must result therefrom. 

The time was when Brazil's industrial development 
was greatly hindered by the lack of coal ; but that time 
is past, or is rapidly passing. Not only does Brazil now 
produce some of the coal she uses, but the electric current 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 27 

has come to dispute the absolute sway of King Coal. 
Formerly, all large manufacturing enterprises and all 
large development of railroads were dependent upon the 
carbon lump; but now in these, as well as in hundreds 
of other enterprises of our modern civilization, the 
electric spark is used, and is the successful rival oi the 
black diamond. As the empire of electricity expands, 
Brazil's industrial problems will find increasingly easy 
solution. There are, in the mountain glens, num- 
berless small streams available for electric plants, thus 
putting light and power within easy reach of almost 
every town, village and hamlet. And while this is true, 
the number of large falls and splendid cataracts in the 
gieat rivers, yielding boundless electric energy, is simply 
amazing. Not to mention others, the Paulo Alfonso 
falls in the Sao Francisco river, where a much larger 
volume of water than Niagara's, makes a plunge of two 
hundred and fifty feet, have an estimated electric energy 
of two million horse-power; and the great falls in the 
Iguassii, said to be much larger than Niagara, were not 
known to the world until a few years ago. 

But vast natural resources do not, of themselves, 
build up great agricultural and industrial enterprises ; 
easy and economical means of transportation are also 
necessary. Has Brazil these ready means of communica- 
tion? The railroads of Brazil — about eleven thousand 
miles of them now in operation — are entirely confined to 
the more densely populated zone along the seaboard, and 
do not penetrate more than five or six hundred miles into 
the interior. Even the eastern belt is poorly supplied 
with roads, and by no means do they satisfy the needs. 
But Brazil is just beginning her development — the roads 
will come. But there are other means of communication, 



28 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

which, in large part, solve the difficulty. There is a coast 
line of nearly five thousand miles, well supplied with 
excellent harbors ; and a most remarkable aid to com- 
merce will be found in the wonderfully extensive and 
complete network of navigable rivers in almost every part 
of the country. Probably no country in the world is 
more favored in this respect than Brazil. Not to men- 
tion the innumerable smaller rivers that are navigable 
for considerable distances, there are three vast river sys- 
tems that pierce the very heart of the country, in easy 
communication with the sea. ♦ 

Beginning in the south, the first of these great river 
systems is the La Plata. Following the Paraguay on the 
west, river boats can go up along the western side of 
the state of IMatto Grosso, along the border of Bolivia, al- 
most to the divide between the La Plata and the Amazon 
basins. On the east, the tributaries, should railroads 
be built around a few falls and rapids, would open up 
the interior commerce of the states from Rio Grande to 
Minas. The second of these systems is the Sao Fran- 
cisco. Interrupted only by the Paulo Alfonso falls, 
around which a railroad is already built, this waterway 
opens up a navigation of more than a thousand miles, 
right into the heart of the great state of ]\Iinas. Several 
of the tributaries of the upper river are also navigable 
for considerable distances. But the other river systems 
of Brazil and of the world are insignificant when com- 
pared with the network formed by the Amazon and its 
affluents. In this great basin, there are more than twenty- 
five thousand miles of inland navigation before the first 
falls are reached. One is staggered by the thought of 
the possibilities in such a region. 

Brazil, at first sight, seems to be at a disadvantage, 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 29 

as compared with Mexico, the United States and Canada, 
in that, while these countries have a seacoast on theif 
western border as well as on the eastern, Brazil has on 
its western border the Andes, cutting off all maritime 
communication in that direction. A few minutes study 
of the map, however, and a word or two of explanation, 
will shovv^ the possibility of a colossal enterprise that 
would open the centre of Brazil to agricultural and indus- 
trial development with a minimum of railroad building. 
The water-shed between the Orinoco river and the Negro, 
the principal northern tributary of the Amazon, is very 
low; so low, in fact, that a certain stream in the border- 
land becomes tributary to both, sending part of its waters 
north to the Orinoco and part south to the Amazon. The 
same thing may be said of the divide between the waters 
of the Madeira, one of the Amazon's southern tributaries 
and those of the Paraguay. There are low marsh lands 
in the western part of the state of Matto Grosso, where 
both rivers take their rise. It is by no means impossible 
that canals may be dug connecting these river basins, and 
opening up inland navigation from the mouths of the 
Orinoco to Buenos Ayres. Here is a work worthy of 
the great captains of industry. What visions arise as one 
contemplates the possibilities of the enterprise ! 

To a remarkable degree, Brazil possesses the natural 
elements of a wonderful material development; but one 
essential thing is lacking, namely, the human element. 
Fertile plains, majestic rivers, mineral wealth, and bound- 
less forests will not, of themselves, beget prosperity; 
man's hand and brain must harness the mighty cataract, 
tame the electric fire, dig the golden store from the 
bowels of earth, and till the plains that they may laugh 
under their harvests of golden grain. Brazil needs the 



30 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

human hand and the human brain to call into action and 
life the wonderful material resources with which the 
Creator has endowed the land. Will this essential factor 
be always lacking? Who can believe it? When we con- 
sider the overcrowded population of many of the Euro- 
pean countries, and then look at the vast stretches of 
unpeopled land in Brazil; when we think how gaunt 
famine stalks abroad among those crowded multitudes 
of the Old World, and how the fertile lands of the New 
reach out beckoning hands, offering peace and plenty; 
when we remember the needs there and the resources 
here, can we doubt that Nature's law of supply and de- 
mand will, in years to come, people the vast plains of 
this New World with the hungry multitudes of the Old? 

Brazil has all of the material resources needed for a 
great civilization, and she is calling for the population 
needed to build it up. Her material resources attract 
the population, and her climatic conditions favor its 
rapid increase. 

Because the larger part of Brazil lies within the 
tropics, most people think of it as a land of eternal 
summer and blazing heat. The idea is not correct, 
and a few days spent in the uplands of Sao Paulo 
or Minas in the month of May or June would dispel it 
once for all. Snow and ice are never seen, save in the 
extreme southern states, and but rarely even there. The 
mercury rarely goes above ninety in the hot season of 
December to March, or below forty in the cold months 
of May to July. Being south of the equatorial line, 
Brazil's seasons are naturally the reverse of those in the 
northern hemisphere. We burn in January and shiver in 
June. But the climate during the cold months of the dry 
season is ideal. In the larger part of Brazil, climatic 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 31 

conditions favor the development of a vigorous race 
of people. 

The climate is not only good, but in the larger part 
of the country, it is also salubrious. In Rio and in many 
other regions, yellow fever was endemic for half a cen- 
tury, and many sections are malarious. But yellow fever 
has been exterminated, and modern science easily con- 
quers malaria. 

Such, then, is Brazil, — a country both interesting and 
attractive, a land of inexhaustible resources and of mar- 
velous future. 



32 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 



CHAPTER II. 



THE PEOPLE. 



Well did Alexander Pope say 'The proper study of 
mankind is man." Brazil is surely an interesting country 
to study, and the most interesting thing in Brazil is the 
Brazilian. But the study of him is a difficult undertak- 
ing. When asked to what race he belongs, or from what 
people descended, one feels at a loss what answer to 
make. When the Europeans began to colonize Brazil, the 
land was already inhabited by the Indian; later on the 
African slave was introduced. There was very little 
mingling of the races in North America, the Anglo- 
Saxon settler holding himself proudly aloof. This was 
not the case in Brazil : there was not a little mingling of 
the European blood with the Indian, not a little of the 
African with the red man, and quite a little of the Euro- 
pean with the African. The cross between the white 
man and the Negro produced the mulatto; that between 
the white man and the Indian, the mameluco ; and that 
between the Negro and the Indian, the cafuso. During 
these four centuries, these classes have gone on inter- 
marrying with more or less freedom, so it can easily be 
understood that the ethnological problem in Brazil is a 
complex one. In the early years there were the six 
classes — three pure bloods and three mixed breeds. 
Now we may reduce them to four : the white, the Indian, 
and the negro, and finally the large mixed class. 

The Indians found peopling Brazil when Cabral dis- 




Rev. F. F. SOREN, 

Pastor First Baptist Cbureli, 

Rio de Janeiro. 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 33 

covered the country in 1500 were very similar in appear- 
ance, habits and beHefs to those found dwelHng in the 
forests and on the plains of North America. Evidently, 
the J were from a common stock. As compared with the 
Iiidians of North America, those of Brazil were smaller 
in stature, less vigorous in their physical habits, less 
ferocious and blood-thirsty — the differences being due, 
probably, to climatic influences. Volumes have been 
written on the subject of the Indians of Brazil, but the 
subject is still in hopeless confusion. Some writers find 
eight or more distinct nations, each divided into sundry 
tribes ; others would reduce all the tribes to two great 
nations. The greatest of these nations was the Tupy, 
whose language is known as the Guarany. In Brazil, as 
in North America, a halo of romance surrounds these 
very unromantic people. There are the stories of Indian 
princesses, corresponding to our romance of Pocahontas, 
the most celebrated of them being Paraguassu, a princess 
of Bahia, who married a white mian, went to Europe, was 
baptized into the Christian faith, Catherine de Medicis, 
Queen of France, acting as godmother. "Guarany," 
Josa de Alencar's most famous novel, is an Indian 
story, and it formed the basis of Carlos Gomes' still more 
famous musical composition, bearing the same name, an 
opera that gave to its author a world-wide reputation. 
These various Indian tribes formed one of the important 
elements in the population of Brazil, and their influence 
on the physical and moral characteristics of the average 
Brazilian of to-day is very noticeable. 

The second, and much the most important element 
in the population, was the European colonist. By far 
the greater number of them came from Portugal, but 
the Spaniard and the Frenchman made considerable con- 



34 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

tributions, and even the Dutch left some sHght traces 
of their passing stay. At a very early day, came also 
the African slave, stolen from his home along the shores 
of sea and river, and brought to develop the agricultural 
enterprizes and to work in the mines of the new country. 
When it was found that they were more valuable for 
these purposes than the Indians, reduced to a state of 
quasi servitude, they were brought over m ever increas- 
ing numbers; and this trade continued in one form or 
another for some three centuries. 

About the middle of the last century and during the 
latter half of it, quite a tide of German imigration flowed 
into Brazil, especially into the southern provinces; and 
during the last decades of the century an enormous wave 
of Italian population overflowed the states of Sao Paulo, 
Rio, and Minas — but more especially Sao Paulo. Aside 
from German and Italian immigrants, quite a number 
of Swedes, Frenchmen and Syrians have made their 
homes in Brazil, with some sprinkling of Spaniards, 
English and Americans. The mother-land of Portugal 
has never ceased to send a constant stream of her chil- 
dren into their second home across the Atlantic, and 
Brazil owes much to the sons of Lusitania. This recent 
immigration has all been from lands where the white 
race predominates, and has considerably increased the 
proportion of whites to the other classes of the popu- 
lation in Brazil. 

Census data in Brazil are of but little worth, and it 
seems impossible to form anything like an accurate esti- 
mate of the proportions in which the different elements 
of the population stand to each other. According to 
the imperfect and partial census made in 1890, of a popu- 
lation of 14,000,000, approximately 6,300,000 were given 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 35 

as whites, 2,100,000 as blacks, 1,300,000 as Indians, and 
the 4,300,000 as mixed bloods. After nineteen years, the 
population is estimated now at about 20,000,000. Of 
these, we may estimate that about forty per cent, or some 
8,000,000, are pure whites, or practically pure ; about fif- 
teen per cent, pure blacks, or some 3,000,000; about ten 
per cent., or 2,000,000, Indians of more or less pure 
blood; and the remaining thirty-five per cent., or 
7,000,000, would be classed as of mixed race. Any 
change in these proportions necessitated by an accurate 
census, would almost certainly be in the direction of 
diminishing the percentage of the pure whites and in- 
creasing that of the mixed race. 

These different elements of Brazil's population are 
not found in the same proportion in every part of the 
country. In many parts of Bahia, the negro population 
is largely in excess of any other, while comparatively 
few Africans are to be found in the extreme southern 
states. Near the seacoast and in the southern states, 
very few Indians of pure blood are met with; the large 
majority of them inhabit the far interior, being found 
mostly in the north of Goyaz, in Matto Grosso, and espe- 
cially in Amazonas. 

Of the 2,000,000 Indians, of more or less pure 
blood, supposed to form a part of Brazifs population at 
present, perhaps 1,000,000 are still in a state of almost 
absolute barbarism. It is said that cannibalism is still 
practiced by some of the tribes. In connection with this 
subject 'of Brazil's Indian population, it will be well to 
call attention to a statement made by a recent author. 
It was not clearly stated, but the impression made by 
the paragraph in question was to the effect that about 
four-fifths of the territory of Brazil was given over to 



36 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

these wandering tribes of Indians. Such an idea is very 
far from accurate. It might not be far from the truth 
to say that four-fifths of Brazil's population is found 
peopling not more than one-fifth of the territory; but to 
think of the remaining four-fifths as wholly given over 
to savage tribes is as far as possible from the truth. 

Enough has been said of the elements of population 
in Brazil ; let us now come a little closer to the Brazilian 
himself, get better acquainted with him and a little more 
familiar with his nearer environment. Nothing, how- 
ever, is more difficult than to draw a pen picture that 
will give an accurate idea of the civilization of a foreign 
people. ''There are tvv^o extremes to be avoided," as 
Dr. Francis Clark so well says, in the Foreword to his 
book, "The Continent of Opportunity." If one describes 
a railroad trip from Rio to Sao Paulo in a Pullman car, 
made on a cool fresh day, after rains have thoroughl) 
laid the dust and brought out fully all of the beauty of 
mountain and valley, he will certainly be very loud in his 
praise of the beauty of the land. If he describes a visit 
to one of Brazil's modern cities, Rio or Sao Paulo, tells 
of the excellent service of electric street-cars, of the 
beautiful parks, the splendid avenues, the magnificent 
public buildings, the Avonderful commercial activity, and 
of the palatial homes — his readers will be wondering why 
the municipal authorities and the Boards of Trade do not 
send representatives to Brazil to take lessons in the 
science and art of municipal life. If a visit to the splen- 
did home of a millionaire planter is described, an account 
given of the banquet in honor of the foreign guest, the 
handsome toilets of the gentlemen and ladies duly noted; 
all this will convince the reader that Brazil is, what 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 37 

Amerigo Vespucci described it to be in his chronicles 
of his voyages, ''an earthly paradise." 

All this and more might be said of Brazil, and 
it would all be true ; but it would be only one phase 
of life in the country, and it would describe the 
life of but a very small part of the twenty millions of 
Brazilians. 

Let us suppose, on the other hand, that our writer is 
describing a journey on mule-back into the far interior 
where population is sparse and he travels for leagues 
without seeing a human face or finding water to slake 
his thirst. His food will be prepared along the roadside 
in a very primitive way, and will be served in a way more 
primitive still. His coffee will be made in a tin can and 
taken from a tin cup, or even from a gourd. He may 
have to sleep under heaven's blue tent, or he may be 
fortunate enough to find a grass-covered hut or shed. 
His bed may be a raw-hide thrown down upon the ground 
and cushioned with his saddle-blankets and his own 
clothing, or it may be a mattress poorly filled with 
shredded corn-husks and stretched upon a frame of split 
poles. This, too, would be a true picture, and would 
describe the manner of life of no small part of Brazil's 
twenty millions. 

There are two ways of telling a story, and both ex- 
tremes should be avoided. Peoples and lands cannot be 
described ; they must be seen and known to be understood 
and rightly appreciated. The writer can hope for nothing 
more in these pages than to give the reader a few touches 
that may enable him to form some idea of Brazil and the 
Brazilians equally free from the opposite extremes. 

And first, the Brazilians from the physical point of 
view. They are, generally speaking, small of stature; 



38 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

though not infrequently one meets with unusually tall 
men and women. The average height would probably 
be at least an inch and a half less than the medium height 
of the people of the United States. The predominant 
type is decidely brunette, though blue eyes and golden 
hair are occasionally seen. The complexion is swarthy, 
such as is doubtless common in Mexico and Cuba, and 
rosy cheeks are almost never seen except in persons of 
foreign birth or lineage. Small hands and feet are the 
rule. As to their personal appearance, the writer will 
not be so uncomplimentary to the Brazilians as some of 
them once were to the Americans. Years ago he took a 
number of photographs to a certain shop in Campinas 
to have them neatly framed. When he went for them 
a few days later, the shop-keeper asked him who the 
friends were, telling him that they had given rise to no 
end of discussion, — ^one now and then insisting that they 
were Americans, but the majority maintaining stoutly 
that such could not possibly be the case, seeing they were 
unusually good-looking folk, whereas everybody knew 
that the Americans were very homely. The Brazilians, 
as a rule, are not homely. Many of the men are hand- 
some, and- some of their women very beautiful. Their 
features are often almost faultless, but frequently there 
is a lack of expression and of animation to light up what 
would otherwise be a beautiful face. Brazil is com- 
paratively a new country, and there are too many and 
too diverse elements in the population to have developed 
in so short a time a distinct national type. 

The Brazilian's bill of fare depends upon his means; 
the rich live very luxuriously, the poor most plainly. 
But whether he be rich or poor, he will generally have 
for breakfast and dinner — ^his two principal meals — rice 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 39 

and beans. Bread is not the staff of life with the Brazi- 
Han, rice and beans hold the first place. With him, the 
''daily bread" spells rice and beans ; and in commbn 
speech, a man does not ask his friend to "come and 
break bread" with him, but to come ''and eat of his 
beans." The principal repasts of the day are two — ^break- 
fast, some time between nine and eleven o'clock, and 
dinner some time between four and seven. The house- 
wife who has been accustomed to the American system 
of three meals a day says they eat all day in Brazil. 
The first thing in the morning is a cup of coffee, gen- 
erally with bread or some light cake ; then comes an 
elaborate breakfast. About noon, coffee is served again, 
which often amounts to a considerable lunch. Dinner 
comes on about four or five; and in the evening, about 
eight o'clock, tea is served with bread and cake. Thus 
it comes to pass that the lady of the house is serving 
the table or preparing something for the table from six 
in the morning till nine at night. 

The wealthy, especially those who live in town, make 
large and constant use of beer and wine at the table ; 
but the statement made in a book recently published, to 
the effect that no family is too poor to have wine with 
their food, is simply absurd. One will travel for weeks 
in the interior of Brazil, eating daily in the homes 01 
the peasant class and of the farmer class, without once 
seeing wine on the table. The people do not make wine, 
and the cheapest wine sold costs about thirty-five or 
forty cents a c[uart, which sum is about as much as many 
day-laborers receive for a day's work. 

The thing that impresses one most forcibly in re- 
gard to the Brazilian's cuisine is the very large use he 
makes of meats, and his great fondness for very greasy 



40 The Evangelical In\-asion of Brazil 

and very highly flavored foods, yiuch of the food is 
redolent with onions and garlic, and no man more thor- 
oughly than our Brazilian friend can understand and 
sympathize with the Israelites when they rebelled agains. 
the "light food" which their ''souls loathed," and longed 
for the "cucumbers, the onions and the garlic" of Egypt. 
One would suppose that, being a tropical land, the people 
would use very little greasy food, and would subsist 
largely on a vegetable and fruit diet. Such is not the 
case, however ; they make less use of vegetable food than 
do the people of North America, and the use they make 
of fruit as part of their food is insignificant. They eat 
fruit, but between meals and as something extra. 

The Brazilian dresses as does his European or North 
American neighbor ; but when dressed for a formal call 
or for a social function, he would impress his North 
American neighbor as being over dressed, or too much 
"dressed up." In this he is more like the peoples ot 
southern Europe. The ladies indulge freely in cosmetics, 
the puff-box with the accompanying "lily white," "swan's 
down" and rouge form an indispensable part of my lady's 
toilet equipm.ent. And one will sometimes meet a dude 
whose face, much whiter than his hands, will suggest 
rice powder, and once in a while a very suspicious pink 
tinge will be noticed on his cheeks. 
fortunately, is very rare. 

As a people, the Brazilians are rather careless about 
their dress when at home, and when in the shop or office, 
but scrupulously careful when performing any official 
act, or attending some formal social function. The small 
boy, Avho will run barefooted and bareheaded over a 
large yard or school campus, utterly regardless of his 
personal appearance, caring not a straw whether or not 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 41 

the lower end of his shirt and the upper end of his 
trousers stand in their due relations, would not think of 
going to the postoffice for mail or of carrying a note to 
the house of a neighbor without being duly clothed, shoa 
and hatted. 

A prominent Presbyterian native minister in Brazil 
tells this story on himself. When a student, he went 
on one occasion to conduct service on the Sabbath in a 
neighboring church. On Saturady afternoon, he rode 
up to the home of a prominent member of the congrega- 
tion, a coffee planter, worth probably fifty thousand dol- 
lars. As he rode up, he saw a man in shirt sleeves, bare- 
footed and with sleeves and trousers legs rolled up, 
walking across the barn-yard. "Hello," called our 
young theolog. ''Hello," answered the man. "Is your 
boss, the farmer, at home " asked the student. "I my- 
self am the boss here," answered the amused planter from 
the barn-yard, careless of the fact that his appearance 
belied his words. 

A party of democratic Americans were travelling by 
rail some years ago in Brazil. They had gotten all of their 
ideas of titled nobility from literature and so were greatly 
surprised and not a little shocked to see an old gentle- 
man walking unconcernedly along the station platform, 
in ragged slippers and with no socks on, and to learn that 
he was the Baron of So-and-so. Had the baron been 
attending some political meeting or some state function, 
he would, doubtless, have presented a very different 
appearance. 

The Brazilians, as a people, are notably courteous 
and affable, kindly, and generous almost to a fault. They 
do not understand what, in the States, is called "little- 
ness," and they despise the man who would be char- 



42 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

acterized in the Gulf States as "picayunish." A more 
obliging people cannot be found. The Brazilian, at any 
time, will put himself out seriously that he may do his 
friend a favor. The answer of a well-known gentleman, 
when asked if he will do you a favor, is ''Two or three 
if you wish"; and our friend Moura means just what he 
says. They are scrupulously polite, affable and cordial ; 
will never allow themselves to be outdone in politeness ; 
but they have a contempt for the gruff and boorish fellow. 

Our Brazilian neighbors, too, are very emotional and 
demonstrative; the stoic is rarely met with. Their emo- 
tional, demonstrative nature finds expression in what 
seems to their friends from colder climes to be excessive 
gesticulation. This characteristic is seen, to some extent, 
in their public speakers, but is noticed more especiall> 
in private conversation. There is often a kind of fascin- 
ation in watching a group of Brazilians in animated 
conversation : face, head, shoulders, arms, and hands are 
all busy, and even their legs are sometimes brought into 
play to give fuller expression and emphasis to their 
thoughts and feelings. The cold-blooded foreigner looks 
on in amazement. The formal handshake of the Anglo- 
Saxon seems very cold and meaningless when one has 
become accustomed to the hearty Brazilian embrace. It 
does one good to see two of them meet after a prolonged 
separation, fly into each other's arms, giving a good 
tight hug with a pat on the back. It certainly looks cor- 
dial and hearty, and it means more than words. 

The warm, emotional Latin blood in the Brazilian's 
veins shows itself in his passionate fondness for music, 
and in his love of pleasure. The theatre, the ball, the 
games and the racetrack all appeal to him strongly; and 
this emotional nature, which is the source of his most 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 43 

attractive graces and his noblest virtues, is, at the same 
time, the most fruitful source of his weaknesses, his 
temptations and his sins. 

Mentally, the Brazilian is alert and quick. As com- 
pared with the German, he is much less thorough; as 
compared with the Anglo-Saxon, he is less practical. 
In acquiring knowledge, he is the superior of either; in 
the use and practical application of what he has acquired, 
he is their inferior. The ease with which they acquaint 
themselves with the facts of this or that science or this 
or that department of learning, is often remarkable; and 
when this facility has been noted, one feels disappointed 
when he observes their lack of ability to digest, assimi- 
late and apply to life's practical problems all this ac- 
quired knowledge. This makes them, generally speaking, 
a nation of theorists ; and they themselves wonder at 
the practical skill of the Anglo-Saxon, and envy him his 
gift. 

The mental alertness of the Brazilian people is seen 
in the school children. Compared with children of the 
same age in North xA^merica, they learn more rapidly, 
and acquire with much more ease the rudiments of edu- 
cation. The youth at college shows the same precocious 
m.ental development. The average Brazilian college boy 
will outshine, by far, his Teutonic classmate of the same 
age and advantages ; but the Teuton will probably dis- 
tance him before the end of life's race is reached. The 
same trait is seen in the men of literary and artistic 
talent. Most of Brazil's writers, whether of prose or of 
verse, have attained their eminence and reached the limit 
of their powers quite early in life, instead of growing 
and ripening on into the afternoon of life's day, as has 
been the case with most of the men of letters in England 



44 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

and America. Antonio Goncalvez Dias, facile princcps 
of Brazilian poets, did most of his work when he was 
quite young; Jose de Alencar, the most prominent of the 
writers of fiction, wrote his most popular romance, 
"Guarany," when he was only twenty-eight years of age ; 
and Carlos Gomes, Brazil's musician of international 
repute, the man who composed the music for the tri- 
umphal hymn at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition 
in 1876, composed his chefd'oeuvre, his great opera en- 
titled ''Guarany," and based on Alencar's famous Indian 
story, at twenty-eight. Most of the men ^vho compose 
the literary constellation of to-day are comparatively 
young men. In this respect, Brazil is certainly a young 
man's country. 

But examples are not lacking to prove that the Bra- 
zilian's mental powers are not always a vanishing quantity 
after life's high-noon is passed. Rio Branca, the present 
great Minister of Foreign Affairs, long ago passed the 
meridian; and Ruy Barbosa, Brazil's brilliant representa- 
tive at the recent Hague Conference, and, in some re- 
spects, the ablest man in Brazil to-day, if not in South 
America, can no longer be classed am.ong the young men. 

The intellectual life and characteristics of the Bra 
zilian people are mirrored in their national literature, 
which is by no means to be despised, and in their na- 
tional journalism, which has many excellencies. The 
best newspapers conform more to the English than to 
the American type. We do not find the grotesque car- 
toons and the startling headlines so common in American 
journalism. Much more space is given to the serious 
discussion of scientific, philosophical, sociological and 
literary questions, and much less to sensational scandal, 
than is the case with the average newspaper of the 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 45 

United States. When one thinks of how much space is 
taken up with the unsavory details of scandal and murder 
trials, he wishes that our North American journalists 
might learn one lesson, at least, from their Brazilian 
confreres. 

The fact just noted, namely, that Brazilian news- 
papers give much space to the discussion of more serious 
and important subjects, is doubtless due, in great mea- 
sure, to the fact that Brazil has almost no periodical 
literature. Most of the work done by the literary, scien- 
tific, philosophical and sociological reviews of North 
America is done by the daily press in Brazil. 

The Brazilian people, generally speaking, take more 
naturally to town, than to country life. The charming 
country home, such an attractive feature of our Ameri- 
can life, is hardly known in the greater part of Brazil; 
and the people can never have a highly developed rural 
civilization until they get better roads and have more 
commodious means of inland travel. The Teutonic na- 
tions are noted for their domestic virtues ; and the Latin 
peoples generally are less fond of their homes and more 
fond of their clubs. In every town and village there are 
one of more places where by common consent, the men 
gather about nightfall, and spend the evening talking to- 
gether. While the Brazilian spends his evening thus, 
the Englishman or the American would probably be at 
home reading, talking to his wife, or romping with his 
children. The home, as to its furnishings, whether hand- 
some or plain, has an air of stiffness. It may be elegantly 
furnished, but it will appear cold and punctilious ; one 
misses the cosey atmosphere that is felt in an American 
home, but cannot be described. 



46 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

The Brazilians are a nation of diplomats. When one 
has associated with the people at large, and has noticed 
the skill with which they approach difficult questions and 
avoid the undesirable ones, he does not wonder that the 
nation should have produced a diplomat of the stature of 
Rio Branco. The shrewdness with which the average 
school boy evades the main issue when called to task for 
misdemeanor, and his consummate skill in defense when 
the issue can no longer be evaded, are indications of the 
innate diplomatic talent; and in this case, the child is 
truly ''father to the man." The common day-laborer 
will, with the greatest shrewdness, by the mere use of a 
word, by the most delicate suggestion, turn the conversa- 
tion to the subject uppermost in his mind, and about 
which he hesitates to speak with his employer. The 
business and the professional man are past masters in 
the art. If they wish to bring up a certain subject, they 
manage so to steer the conversation, suggesting far more 
than is said, that we must come to the point ourselves, 
or appear rude. And while skilful in bringing up a sub- 
ject about which they wish to speak, they are no less 
dextrous in veering off from one they do' not care to 
discuss. We blunt Anglo-Saxons feel helpless in their 
hands. Ian Maclaren gives to the Drumtochty house- 
wives the palm for diplomacy, but Ian Maclaren had 
never known the people of Brazil. 

As is the individual, so is the nation. The Brazilians 
have had many diplomatic questions, and they need not 
be ashamed of their record. They have crossed swords 
with the English, with the French and with the Germans, 
and they have drawn blood more frequently than they 
have lost it. They are great advocates of arbitration, 
and when we consider the number of causes they have 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 47 

won, we do not wonder at their advocacy of the method. 
Within very recent years they brought the question ot 
Amapa and the French before the President of Switzer- 
land for arbitration, and the long standing quarrel with 
the Argentine over the very complicated question of the 
Missoes was brought before President Cleveland's judi- 
cial mind for settlement. In both cases, Brazil won out 
splendidly. Two years ago, in the Petropolis treaty, Rio 
Branco settled a vexed and delicate question with 
Bolivia, and secured for frazil a large territory of mag- 
nificent rubber forests. The diplomatic instinct is born 
in the Brazilian. 

Brazil is a country of contrasts and extremes. We 
meet side by side the very rich and the very poor — the 
wealthy living in the greatest luxury, the poor in the most 
squalid poverty. Side by side v/e meet the extremes of 
learning and ignorance. A few years ago, the percentage 
of illiteracy was estimated at more than four-fifths of the 
population. That has changed for the better, and now 
twenty-five per cent, of the people, probably, can read 
and write. But it is astounding to think of three-fourths 
of the people being illiterates in a country where so 
many signs of an advanced stage of civilization are seen 
on every hand. 

These contrasts and extremes are still more strik- 
ingly seen in the material development of the country. 
Some years ago, the writer was riding horseback across 
country from a railroad station to a country neighbor- 
hood twelve miles distant. He had just left behind the 
steam cars and the electric telegraph. Overhead ran a 
telephone wire connecting the station with the distant 
country neighborhood. On the road, he met a man 
rushing by on a bicycle, and a hundred yards further on 



48 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

he met an ox-cart of the same pattern as those used in 
the Roman Empire two thousand years ago. Could it 
be possible? One must rub his eyes to see whether 
he is in the ancient world or the modern, or whether he 
is having an experience such as that of Mark Twain's 
"Yankee at King xA^rthur's Court." 

On the same farm, the visitor will doubtless see the 
most primitive agricultural implements and the most 
modern, the methods of three thousand years ago and 
the most advanced methods of to-day. The land may 
be plowed with a modern and most improved disk or 
sulky plow, the grain planted with the most highly im- 
proved patent planter, reaped with the old-time sickle, 
and then beaten out with a flail such as Gideon used in the 
time of the Judges. 

But the fact that these incongruities exist is proof 
that Brazil is awaking, or has awaked. Yes, this young 
giant has awaked and is going forward by leaps and 
bounds. A wonderful change has come over the land 
within the last twenty-five years, and what is seen is but 
the beginning. The next half -century will witness a 
material development such as has hardly been dreamed 
of. The people are getting a vision of the possibilities 
of their land, and they will translate possibilities into 
realities. 

Such, then, is Brazil ; a land of wonderful resources 
and possibilities. Such, too, are the Brazilians ; a people 
of keen and ready intellect, affable and winsome in 
mianners ; a people just getting a vision of the possible 
greatness and power of their land ; twenty millions of 
people in a land that would easily support five hundred 
millions. 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 49 



CHAPTER III. 



their history. 



In the preceding chapters, something has been said 
of the land and of the people ; now something needs to 
be said of their history. If it be true, as so many things 
seem to indicate, that Brazil is destined to become one 
of the two greatest nations of the Western Hemisphere, 
no one who takes a broad view of world affairs can fail 
to be interested in her history from the beginning tO' the 
present time. 

Brazil's history falls naturally into three grand divi- 
sions: I. Colonial Brazil, from 1500 to 1822; II. Impe- 
rial Brazil, from 1822 to 1889; and III. Republican 
Brazil, from 1889 to the present. 

The newly discovered land became a Portuguese pos- 
session not so much because it was discovered and re- 
ported to Europe by the Portuguese navigator Cabral, but 
because the eastern shores first discovered lay to the 
east of an imaginary line, adopted by the Treaty of 
Tordezillas in 1494, by which Pope Alexander VI. sought 
to mark the boundary between Spain and Portugal in 
the lands already discovered and still to be discovered 
in the New World. This imaginary line was three hun- 
dred and seventy leagues west of Cape Verde, and as 
the shores of Brazil were to the east of the line, the land 
was a Portuguese possession. The summary way in 
which his holiness thought he could dispose of the new 
lands of a great continent may provoke a smile in this 



50 . The Evaxgelical Invasion of Brazil 

twentieth century; but it was taken seriously four hun 
dred years ago, and determined that this land of great 
extent and wonderful possibilities should receive its 
4Dlood, its ideals and its language from Lusitanian rather 
than from Castilian sources. It is amusing now to see 
the old maps of the colony, showing this line running 
north and south, following more or less closely the fif- 
tieth degree of longitude west of Greenwich, significant 
proof and illustration of the decline of papal power and 
influence. 

In this very brief resume, no detailed account of the 
passing years can be undertaken; only a few of the 
events of cardinal im.portance will be noticed in each of 
the grand divisions of the country's history; and first 
we have Colonial Brazil. 

The first serious attempt at colonization was in the 
reign of D. Joao III. In 1534, this monarch divided 
seven hundred leagues of the eastern coast line into 
twelve colonies, which he called Capitanias, conferring 
them upon Portuguese nobles in perpetual and here- 
ditary right. Some of the Capitanias were founded, and 
prospered; but the majority of the grants were not taken 
up, or having been taken up, were later on abandoned, 
and so reverted to the Portuguese crown. Permanent 
settlements were made at Pernambuco, Bahia, and in 
Sao Paulo ; and all went well for a while. But a central 
authority was needed, a bond of union must exist, and 
the system as a whole was found to be a failure. Ac- 
cordingly, in 1549, Thome de Souza, a man highly con- 
nected, of high character and great talents, was sent out 
as the first Governor-General of Brazil. He established 
his official headquarters at Bahia, which thus became 
the capital of Brazil ; it so continued for more than two 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 51 

centuries, until, in 1763, it was moved to Rio de Janeiro, 
that the central authority might be nearer to the La 
Plata region, where there was always trouble, and often 
war, between the Portuguese and the Spanish. 

This change of policy brought great blessing and 
prosperity to the colonies. During the colonial period 
of her history, Brazil was ruled by fifty of the governors- 
general, many of them men of rare gifts of administra- 
tion. Toward the close of the period, these representa- 
tives of the royal authority came to be known as vice-reis. 

Among the more interesting and important of the 
events of Brazil's Colonial Period, must be placed The 
French Invasion and Attempts at Colonization. During 
the latter part of the fifteenth and throughout the six- 
teenth centuries, the nations of western Europe were 
dominated by the spirit of colonial and commercial em- 
pire. Under the influence of this spirit, far-seeing 
Frenchmen attempted to colonize Brazil and wrest the 
fair land from Portugal's grasp. The first of these at- 
tempts was made in the bay of Rio, where the island 
of Villegagnon preserves the name of the man who was 
at the head of the enterprise. The colony is known in 
history as Antartic France, and the French were in com- 
mand of the beautiful harbor from 1555 to 1567, when 
they were driven out by the Portuguese. This colonial 
enterprise was intimately connected with Coligny's at- 
tempt to found in Brazil an asylum for his persecutea 
Huguenot brethren of France, of which more will be 
said in a subsequent chapter. 

Driven out of the Rio bay in 1567, the French, in the 
beginning of the century following, made a serious at- 
tempt to establish themselves in the north of the island 
of Maranhao, and for five years, they maintained im- 



52 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

portant colonial establishments at that point. That en- 
terprise, too, came to naught ; the French withdrew, and 
Brazil was once more the undisputed possession of 
Portugal. 

An important place in the colonial annals of Brazil 
must be given to The Spanish Domination of Sixty 
Years, from 1580 to 1640. When the gallant young 
Portuguese monarch, D. Sebastion, had fallen whilt^ 
battling with the Moors in north Africa, and when his 
aged uncle, D. Henrique, had died after a reign of but 
two years, Philip II., with the aid of Pope Gregory 
XIII., succeeded in having himself recognized as king 
of Portugal. Thus it came about that, while all Europe 
was feeling the heavy and cruel hand of Spain, guided 
by the pious treachery of Philip and his papal master, 
in a persistent and systematic effort to crush the Reform- 
ation and to destroy civil and religious liberty, Brazil, 
too, although beyond the seas, felt something of the bane- 
ful influence. During these sixty years of the Spanish 
Domination, the colony continued to be governed by 
Portuguese rulers, and prospered, in a measure, due to 
its great inherent resources. Spain sought to defend 
the possession against the invasions of the Dutch, but 
did absolutely nothing for its development and progress. 
In 1640, when Portugal proclaimed her independence of 
the Spanish crown, and placed upon her throne the 
house of Braganza, represented by Duke John, who 
became John IV., the vSpanish Domination came tO' an 
end in Brazil. AJexander Herculano, one of Portugal's 
most brilliant writers of history and romance, calls this 
period ''the Sixty Years Captivity." 

During this early Colonial Period is to be noticed 
also The Dutch Invasion of Thrity years, 1624- 1654. 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 53 

Brazil at this time was a Spanish colony, and the 
invasion by the Dutch was a part of the general war 
between Spain and Holland. It was not, however, 
simply a measure of military strategy, it was also 
a part of Holland's vast program of commercial 
and colonial expansion. She was planting colonies 
in the East Indies, why not do the same in South 
America? This invasion was begun by the taking of 
Bahia, which, however, was afterwards retaken by the 
Spanish. The next step was the taking of Pernambuco, 
where the Dutch established themselves in force. From 
this centre, the Dutch extended their influence north and 
south and west, and at one time they dominated the 
larger part of northern Brazil. The native Indians and 
the Portuguese colonists were well treated and were more 
content to be under the Dutch than under the Spanish 
rule. There was much prosperity in the colony, and all 
went well. 

The most brilliant page of the history of this Dutch 
Invasion is that which records the government of the 
colony by Prince Maurice of Nassau, nephew of William 
the Silent. An abler and wiser man never governed a 
colony. During the seven years in which he was at the 
head of affairs, Holland's interests prospered, and it 
looked as if Brazil might become a Dutch colony. A 
Brazilian historian says of Prince Maurice : ''By his 
intelligence, his high qualities and ability, he greatly en- 
dangered the Portuguese possessions in Brazil." One 
of the wisest measures introduced by him was that of 
religious toleration and freedom. A highly educated 
Brazilian gentleman remarked to the writer, some years 
ago, that to Maurice of Nassau belonged the honor of 
publishing the first decree of absolute religious freedom 



54 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

known in history. Whether this statement be strictly 
accurate or not, sure it is that Maurice was far in ad- 
vance of his age on this important point. 

After the withdrawal of the Prince of Nassau in 
1644, affairs in the colony went badly. Divisions and 
strife appeared. Holland was at war with England, and, 
for interests of far less moment, failed to hold and 
strengthen her position in Brazil. Portugal was now 
free fromi the Spanish yoke, and the colonists preferred 
Portuguese rule. ¥/ar broke out, and, after several 
minor reverses, the Dutch were finally defeated in two 
general engagements in the low mountain range west 
of Pernambuco, called the "Guararapes," in 1648 and 
'49. These two defeats broke Holland's power com- 
pletely, and in 1654 the Dutch withdrew from Brazil. 
Thus ended the Dutch Invasion, an incident in Brazil's 
history that must always arouse the interest and excite 
the imagination of thinking men. 

Some years ago, an intelligent merchant of Pernam- 
buco, a Brazilian of pure Portuguese descent, travelling 
on shipboard, was discussing matters in general. In the 
course of his remarks, he said that the greatest misfor- 
tune that had ever befallen Brazil was the expulsion of 
the Dutch by the Portuguese. He had travelled in 
Europe, and had visited Holland. 'Tf they could make," 
said he, ''such a garden of that land of rock and marsh, 
stolen from the arms of the sea, what would they not 
have made of Brazil? And what would they not have 
made, indeed? 

In one of the art galleries of Rio de Janeiro, there 
is a large oil painting, covering a large part of a side 
wall in one of the room.s, that will at once arrest the 
attention of the visitor. The writer has stood before it 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 55 

with a certain feeling of awe. It represents the battle 
of the "Guararapes," and shows the Portuguese and 
Dutch in deadly conflict. In the intense look on the 
faces of the struggling warriors, one seems to see the 
mighty interests at issue. The destiny of nations and 
peoples is at stake ; a continent is the wage of battle. 
A Teuton and a Protestant cannot help wishing that the 
fate of battle had been other than it was. 

In 1661, Charles II., of England, married Princess 
Catharine of Braganza, thus laying the foundation of the 
traditional friendship between the Island Empire and 
little Portugal. Quite an impulse was given to the life 
and commerce of the colonies by the discovery of gold 
in Minas, in 1697, and in Matto Grosso, in 1733. Jusi 
after the middle of the eighteenth century, the long- 
standing question between Portugal and Spain over their 
possessions in the La Plata region became acute, and 
more than once there was resort to arms. But the most 
important event in that century, from the point of view 
of its influence on the subsequent history of the country, 
was The Conspiracy and Execution of Tiradentes. This 
was a sad political tragedy. 

Unjust and oppressive laws passed by the Portuguese 
Cortes had aroused great opposition in Brazil. The op- 
position was all the more bitter because the laws that 
aroused it were so entirely out of harmony with the 
spirit of the times. The English colonies in North 
America had just rebelled against the unjust taxation 
imposed by the mother country, and had achieved na- 
tional independence ; the forces that were soon to cause 
that marvelous political and social convulsion known as 
the French Revolution were fast gathering; and all the 
air in Europe and America was full of the spirit of 



56 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

liberty and independence and the equality of human 
rights. Brazilian students in the European universities 
were in touch with these movements, and they brought 
the fire in their bosoms back to the colonies. There was 
a desire to throw off the yoke of Portuguese oppression. 

This spirit took form in a conspiracy, organized in the 
Capitania of Minas, having as its aim the establishing of 
a republic in Minas, with its capital at Sao Joao del Rey. 
The conspiracy -was quite widespread and involved a 
number of men prominent in literary and political circles. 
When fully organized, it was betrayed and the leaders 
arrested. The leading spirit of the movement was 
Joaquin Jose da Silva Xavier, commonly known as 
Tiradentes, that is, "tooth-puller," because he was by 
profession a dentist, as the dental art went in those early 
times. In 1789, Tiradentes and his fellow conspirators 
were arrested. All were condemned, but only he was 
executed, the other sentences being commuted to banish- 
ment. In 1792, the year of the French Revolution, Tira- 
dentes was hanged, his body drawn and quartered, and 
sent back to Minas as a solemn warning to any who 
might be dreaming of republican form of government. 
In 1889, J^st a century after Tiradentes' arrest, the re- 
public of which he dreamed and for which he died, was 
born, and it has honored his memory by making the day 
of his martyrdom, April 21, a national holiday. "Truth 
forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne." 

The closing years of the Colonial Period, the years 
from 1808 to 1822, brought into Brazilian history a very 
interesting and unique incident, nothing less than the re- 
moval of the royal family from the mother country to the 
colony, the only case of the kind in American history. 
The causes leading up to this unusual incident are closely 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 57 

connected with the great events of those stirring times 
in the early years of the nineteenth century, when Napo- 
leon was playing his magnificent game with Europe as 
his chess-board. In his famous Berlin Decree, in Novem- 
ber, 1806, the emperor had declared all British ports 
blockaded, and British products excluded from Conti- 
nental ports. Plucky Britain had retaliated with her 
Order-in-Council, declaring the blockade of all Conti- 
nental ports from which the British flag was excluded. 
When D. Joao, the prince-regent of Portugal, refused to 
renounce the alliance with England and close Purtuguese 
ports to British ships. Napoleon coolly announced to 
Europe, ''the House of Braganza has ceased to reign," 
and forthwith sent an army into Portugal. The royal 
family hastened to embark in English ships, and moved 
the court to Rio de Janeiro. 

We may not admire John's lack of courage in leaving 
Lisbon, but the move certainly brought great advantages 
to the colony. In 1808, the ports of Brazil, hitherto 
closed to foreign commerce, were opened to all friendly 
nations. Civil courts, libraries and museums were 
opened. Institutions of higher learning were also 
founded; but, as a modern historian pithily comments, 
"not a single primary school" was opened. 

In 181 5, Brazil was raised to the category of a king- 
dom, and in the following year, Queen Mary having 
died, her son was crowned king as D. Joao VI., King of 
Portugal, Brazil and Algarves. But John did not re- 
main long in Brazil. In 1820 a revolution broke out in 
Portugal, and the interests of the royal family demanded 
their return to the old country. The following year, 
leaving his son, D. Pedro, as Regent of Brazil, the king 
with his court returned to Lisbon. 



58 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

History was now made rapidly. One important poli- 
tical event trod on the heels of another. The Portuguese 
Cortes resolved to reduce Brazil to her former subor- 
dinate position, and to this end several radical measures 
were adopted. The Regent was ordered back to Por- 
tugal. But Brazil had tasted the sweets of liberty and 
equality, and was unwilling to be reduced to secondary 
rank; several Capitanias requested D. Pedro to remain 
in Brazil in disobedience to the Cortes. The Prince 
answered, 'T will remain," and the gauntlet was thrown 
down. The tidings of this independent attitude of the 
prince and of the people of Brazil greatly exasperated 
the king and the* Cortes. Other despatches and more 
irritating ones were sent across the Atlantic. These 
despatches were handed to the prince and were read a 
few miles out of Sao Paulo, whence he was returning to 
Rio. As he read, indignation flamed within him; and 
there on the banks of a little stream called the Ypiranga, 
D. Pedro raised the historic cry, "Independence or 
Death," and a nation was born in the twinkling of an 
eye, September 7, 1822. A splendid memorial building, 
used as a museum, marks the historic spot where the 
Brazilian natioa was born of the patriotic cry of him 
who was to be her first emperor, D. Pedro I., of the 
House of Braganza. 

We now come to the second period of our historical 
survey, and have before us Imperial Brazil. The empire 
lived for sixty-seven years, 1822-1889. Only two em- 
perors occupied the throne — Pedro I. and Pedro II, 
father and son. The first reigned but nine years ; the 
second, counting the years of his minority, reigned for 
fifty-eight. 




w 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 59 

Little of special interest occurred in the reign of 
Pedro' I. The empire was organized with its legislative, 
executive and judicial branches made distinct ; and a 
liberal constitution was framed. In 1826, D. Joao died, 
and D. PedrO' was asked to occupy the throne of Por- 
tugal. He preferred to remain in Brazil, and abdicated 
the Portuguese throne in favor of his daughter Mary. 
The emperor was strong-willed, and soon became un- 
popular in Rio and in the adjoining provinces. In 1831, 
misunderstandings arose and became serious ; a revolu- 
tion seemed imminent. On April 7, he abdicated in 
favor of his son Pedro, a boy of five years of age, and, 
in^an English ship, sailed away tO' Portugal, saying he 
left behind a country he had always loved and that he 
loved still. In Brazil, Pedro I. is known as ''the Liber- 
ator," and he is also called ''the Soldier King." His 
martial and kingly bearing are well brought out in the 
handsome equestrian statue of him that stands in one of 
Rio's beautiful public gardens, in the centre of the great 
metropolis. With his left hand, he reins in his fiery 
steed, in his right, he holds aloft the constitution, symbol 
of free and independent Brazil, his great gift to his 
people and to the world. 

Pedro II. was five years old when his father abdi- 
cated in his favor. Nine years later, as the most satis- 
factory way of settling a number of difficult questions 
and of quelling a number of nascent revolutions, the 
Parliament proclaimed the majority of the young ruler, 
and soon thereafter, he ascended the throne and was 
crowned. The first twenty-five years of his reign, though 
witnessing ^a number of smaller local revolutions and 
disorders, were marked by no event of international 
importance, save the invasion of the Argentine in a brief 



6o The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

war with the dictator, Rosas, who, after his defeat, fled 
to Europe. 

Brazil has an enviable record as a peace-loving na- 
tion. The only serious foreign war in her history was 
that with Paraguay, in the latter half of the reign of 
Pedro II. The war was brought on by Lopes, who had 
made himself dictator of Paraguay, had gathered a con- 
siderable army, and had gotten together a large amount 
of military supplies. Lopes' aim probably was to annex 
to Paraguay the state of Matto Grosso, lying to the 
north of his country and reached by means of the Para- 
guay river. Three phases of the war may be noted. The 
first phase was the aggressive move of Paraguay, in- 
vading the state of Matto^ Grosso on the north and 
Rio Grande do Sul on the south, both easily reached by 
the river La Plata and its tributaries. This phase of the 
war was ended by the capture of the Paraguayan army 
of six thousand that had invaded Rio Grande and occu- 
pied and fortified the city of Uruguayana, on the banks 
of the Uruguay, The second phase of the war from 
1866 to 1869, was the longest and most difficult for 
Brazil. After driving the Paraguayans from her terri- 
tory, she undertook to invade theirs and to advance on 
the capital city, Asuncion. This was no easy matter, for 
all the approaches by land and by river had been guarded 
by Lopes. The city was finally taken, though, and Lopes 
became a fugitive, giving himself up to guerilla warfare. 
The third phase, of only a few months, consisted in the 
efforts to capture and destroy Lopes and the remnants 
of his army. This was finally accomplished in the battle 
on the banks of the Aquidaban, where the dictator was 
slain. 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 6i 

In the campaigns of these five years, not a little hard 
service was seen, and not a little genuine fighting was 
done, both by the land and naval forces. General Osorio 
and the Duke of Caxias were the most noted army offi- 
cers ; the Baron of Tamandare and Admiral Barroso won 
the laurels in the naval engagements ; and the names 
Riachuelo, Humaita, Villeta, Angostura, Aquidaban and 
others, given to streets and public squares, keep alive 
in the memory of the people the names of the most fa- 
mous battles. 

But "peace hath her victories no less renowned than 
war" ; and while referring to Brazil's feats of arms, zue 
fiiiisf not forget her more splendid victory of peace, in 
the liberation of her millions of slaves. The campaign 
in behalf of abolition began earlier in the century, but it 
became more active during the last twenty years of the 
empire. Three different laws were passed by Parliament 
tending to and providing for the emancipation of Brazil's 
slaves. The first law was passed in 1871, and provided 
that all children born of slave mothers should be free; 
the second, enacted in 1885, emancipated all slaves who 
reached the age of sixty; and both of these enactments 
made further provision for gradual emancipation. Each 
victory gained only served to make the advocates of im- 
mediate and universal emancipation more aggressive and 
determined. Finally, on the 13th of May, 1888, the 
''golden law," as it is called, was passed by the Parliament, 
putting an end forever to slavery on Brazilian soil. 
What cost so much blood and treasure, what caused so 
much bitterness and sorrow in North America, was 
accomplished in the Brazilian empire without the shed- 
ding of a drop of blood, with no social or political 
convulsion. 



62 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

The first and the third of the three great laws of 
emancipation were passed in the absence of D. Pedro, 
when the Princess Isabel was regent. She was not 
popular with the nation, and some have thought that she 
favored emancipation, hoping thus to secure for herself 
the imperial throne. If this was her motive, she was 
sadly mistaken, for the result was quite the opposite. 
One of the great ministers of the empire had wisely fore- 
seen the logical connection between the two movements, 
and had pithily remarked, "After abolition, the Republic." 
Up to this time, the Republican Party in Brazil had been 
small; but after the law of the 13th of May had been 
passed many of the rabid defenders of slavery and 
m.any of the extreme conservatives swung to the opposite 
political extreme and aligned themselves with the 
republicans. 

Thus, in a very few months, the Republican party had 
becomie strong and aggressive ; something must be done 
to weaken or destroy- it. To this end, a new ministry 
was formed, a new Parliament elected. In the" meantime, 
the army also had become disaffected toward the gov- 
ernm.ent, and its sympathies were turning more and more 
towards the Republicans. During the year 1889, several 
of the stronger battalions of the army had been sent 
av/ay from Rio. Some thought this a part of the plan 
to lower the prestige of the army and to prepare the way 
for the destruction of the Republican Party ; others, how- 
ever, thought it was a part of a plan looking to the abdi- 
cation of the emperor in favor of his daughter. Princess 
Isabel, to accomplish which the elements of opposition 
should be removed. Matters went on from bad to worse ; 
the relations between the army and the ministry became 
constantly more strained. Finally, there came an order 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 6^ 

for the withdrawal from Rio of another division of the 
army, and this brought matters to a crisis. Many of the 
officers determined to resist the order and to demand 
that the ministry be deposed. 

Accordingly, on the morning of November i^th, a 
part of the army was in revolt, and other divisions rapidly 
adhered 'to the movement. Marshal Manoel Deodoro 
da Fonseca, the head of the army, ordered the ministry 
to resign. The prime minister refused, and ordered the 
adjutant-general, Floriano Peixoto, to open fire on the 
insurgent brigade. This Peixoto refused to do, calling 
the attention of the minister to the position of the cannon, 
placed in the square in front of the building where the 
ministry was assembled, assuring him that, if the bri- 
gade were fired upon, the artillery would demolish the 
building within five minutes. Deodoro walked into the 
building amidst the wild acclaim of the soldiers, and de- 
manded that the ministry resign. They saw their cause 
was lost, and, with what grace they could summon, they 
telegraphed their resignation to the emperor, who was 
in his summer palace at Petropolis, twenty-five miles 
away. 

Up to this point, the struggle had been between the 
army and the ministry, and the ministry had lost. Now 
the Republican Party comes to the front, and suggests, 
through its leaders, that the opportunity be seized upon 
to proclaim the Republic. For a moment, doubtless, 
Deodoro, trained, as a soldier should be, to obedience 
and loyalty, hesitated between the past and the future. 
Then he lifted his hat reverently, and cried "Long live 
the Brazilian Republic." The cry was immediately taken 
up by the soldiers, was passed on, with enthusiasm, by 
the populace ; it soon re-echoed throughout the capital. 



64 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

and a salute of twenty-one guns announced the birth of 
the Republic. With the shout of Prince Pedro, the em- 
pire was born on the banks of the Ypiranga, September 
7, 1822; and with the shout of Marshal Deodoro, the 
RepubHc was born, in the nation's capital, at eleven 
o'clock, on November 15th, 1889. 

A Provisional Government was at once established in 
the name and by the authority of the army and navy, with 
Deodoro at its head. All rights were guaranteed, and it 
was announced that peace and quiet would be maintained 
at any cost. The royal family was invited to quit the 
country. 

Thus ended the empire of Brazil, the last monarchy 
on the American Continent. Gladly would the people 
of Brazil have had D. Pedro spend his last years as 
monarch of the land he loved, for the people of the land 
loved him. But they would none of the ultramontane 
Princess Isabel, or of her bigoted husband, the Count 
d'Eu, of the French house of Orleans. We may well 
quote here the striking language of the historian Clare in 
regard to Brazil's last emperor: "Thus ended the reign 
of Dom Pedro II., one of the best monarchs that ever 
wore a crown. He immortalized his reign by his un- 
selfish efforts to benefit his subjects, instead of seeking 
his own personal aggrandizement ; and he quietly ac- 
quiesced in the logic of events which involved the sacri- 
fice of his throne." The empress died in Lisbon on 
December 28, 1889; and Dom Pedro passed away in 
Paris, on December 5, 1891. 

We now come to the last period of the history, and 
have before us Republican Brazil. The Provisional 
Government organized on November 15, went quietly to 
work to perpetuate the republican institutions. The Re- 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 65 

public had been proclaimed in the name of the army and 
navy; but it must be adopted and cherished by the 
people. Accordingly, provision was made for the elec- 
tion of a Constitutional Congress. It assembled in Sep- 
tember, 1890, and on the 24th of February, 1891, the 
Constitution was proclaimed. It is a state paper of great 
ability, closely modeled after the great charter of North 
American liberties, improving on it, in some particulars, 
and in others, modifying it the better to suit the needs 
and to meet the tendencies of a Latin people just emerg- 
ing from monarchy. The distinction is clearly empha- 
sized between the three great branches of government — 
the legislative, the executive and the judicial. The ex- 
ecutive function vests in the President and his six cab- 
inet ministers who form his political household. The 
legislative power vests in a Congress composed of two 
chambers — the deputies and the senators, all elected by 
the direct suffrages of the people. The same is true of 
the President. The judiciary, both federal and state, is 
organized much as in the United States. 

The Capitanias of colonial times became provinces of 
the kingdom and of the empire, their number increasing 
to twenty. These twenty provinces became the twenty 
states of the Republic, varying as much in size as Rhode 
Island and Texas. 

During the twenty years of the Republic's life, six 
men have occupied the presidential chair. The first 
President elected was Generalissimo Manoel Deodoro da 
Fonseca, who had been provisional president. After his 
election, he held the reins of government less than a 
year. A naval revolt compelled him to hand over the 
reins to the vice-president, Floriano Peixoto. The his- 
tory of the first eight years of the Republic is the history 



66 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

of revolution and strife. This was to be expected: 
periods of radical political change must necessarily be 
periods of disorder. It was so in the North American 
Republic, where republican ideas were in the blood of 
the people; how much more in Brazil, where the tradi- 
tions of the people, both political and ecclesiastical, were 
of monarchical government. The only wonder is there 
have been so few revolutions, and that the nation should 
have settled down so soon to an orderly and quiet mode 
of life. The contrast between the history of Brazil in 
this regard and that of her neighbors in Central and 
South America, is the clearest proof of the essentially 
peaceful and orderly character of the people. 

The most serious disturbance of these twenty years 
was the second naval revolt. It broke out in September, 
1893, and continued until March of the following year. 
Custodio de Mello got to himself much honor and praise 
when he compelled Deodoro to resign from the presi- 
dency; but when he undertook the same thing with 
Peixoto, fate and the judgment of history went against 
him. But for six months, the bay of Rio was the scene 
of much excitement. At first, the fight was between two 
parties of republicans ; later on, the result became a mon- 
archist movement, looking to the restoration of the royal 
family and the empire. The attitude of Admiral Ben- 
ham, who was acting under orders from President Cleve- 
land, and who refused to recognize the revolted Brazilian 
squadron as having any beligerent rights — the only con- 
sistent and logical position possible in the case — broke 
the force of the revolt, and put an end to the struggle. 
There were several other minor disorders, but nothing 
more so serious as this naval revolt. 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil d'j 

Marshal Floriano Peixoto was the last military presi- 
dent. With President Prudente de Moraes came the 
civil regime : and during these twelve years, Brazil has 
entered upon an era of unparalleled prosperity. Since 
the proclamation of the Republic, twenty years ago, 
Brazil has developed more, and has done more to win 
for herself a place of influence and power in the great 
family of nations than she had done in any half-century 
of her previous history. In view of her brilliant begin- 
ning, what may we not expect of her in the coming 
years? 

An intelligent, generous, broad-minded people, in- 
habiting a vast country of inexhaustible natural resources, 
working out their destiny under a political constitution 
that must challenge the admiration of the world : such is 
the Brazilian nation to-day. As one surveys her past 
history and studies her present conditions, he feels that 
he must take up the words of Marshal Deodoro, uttered 
on the 15th of November, 1889, and cry with all his 
heart : ''Long live the Brazilian Republic !" 

There is just one thing lacking for the development 
of a great power of lasting and benign influence : that one 
needed element will be considered in the remaining chap- 
ters of this book. 



68 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE XATIOX'S XEED BRAZIL AS A MISSION FIELD. 

This book, both in its motive and purpose, is pri- 
marily a mission study. The preceding chapter closed 
with the statement that only one thing is needed to make 
Brazil a great world power of lasting and benign influ- 
ence. That one thing needful is the religion of Jesus 
Christ in its purity, and the purpose of this book is so 
to present the attractions, the possibilities and the needs 
of the land and the people that Evangelical Christendom 
may be stirred to earnest and persistent effort to win the 
nation for Christ and for his Kingdom. 

But when Brazil's claims as a great and important 
mission field are presented, two objections are at once 
offered. Some years ago, a missionary was asked to 
address an audience in the mountains of Virginia. As 
it was a mixed audience, as to age, creed, and religious 
interests, the speaker, by way of introduction, had quite 
a good deal to say about Brazil's material wealth and 
progress, speaking of her railroads, electric lights and 
cars, her banks, her commerce and her handsome modern 
cities. He was somewhat taken aback when he heard 
of one of his auditors having remarked, that he was 
sure, after hearing the lecture, that Brazil did not need 
missionaries. Quite a disappointing result of a mission- 
ary address, all will agree. The story is told because 
that old A'irginian mountaineer is a type. ]\Iany who 
read the account in the preceding chapters of Brazil's 




Rev. G. W. CHAMBERLAIN. D. D., 

Pioneer Missionary of the Presbyterian Cburcli, U. S. 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 69 

commercial development, of her modern cities and of 
her advanced material civilization will, at first, be ready- 
to say that a country so highly civilized has no need of 
missionaries or of missionary v^ork. But it may be 
asked, in reply, will civilization save a man or a nation? 
Will electric lights illumine the road that leads to the 
Kingdom of Heaven? and will street cars and railway 
trains carry sinners to the Gates of Pearl? In the light 
of God's Word and of sacred history, such an idea seems 
absurd. Suppose Paul had entertained such ideas, would 
he have gone from the obscure province of Judea to 
preach the gospel in Athens and in Rome, the centres 
of the world's learning and power? Greece had intel- 
lectual culture and artistic taste; Rome had the most 
splendid material civilization the world had ever seen ; 
but Judea had the gospel which was "the power of God 
unto salvation," and Paul well knew that the Gospel of 
Christ was the salt that was to save the earth. 

But a more serious objection still is urged when the 
claims of Brazil as a mission field are pressed. Many 
worthy people seriously question the propriety of sending 
Protestant missionaries to papal lands. Brazil being a 
Roman Catholic country, these good people say, the 
Brazilians have a form of Christianity, and they think 
it unwise, if not uncharitable and unchristian, to be 
prosecuting missionary work among them. 

"By their fruits ye shall know them," the Saviour 
said. For four hundred years, Romanism has had 
full sway in Brazil, and, unhindered by other in- 
fluences, it has developed according to his own 
genius and principles. Here, we should expect to 
find it in its full flower and fruitage ; and Romanism, 
as seen in Brazil, is not the religion of Christ. 
It wears the livery of Christianity, but in its 



70 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

form and in its essence it is pagan. That there are ele- 
ments of Christian truth found in it, all gladly admit ; but 
these elements of truth are so covered over with super- 
stition and error, and the human element mingled with 
the divine is m.ade so prominent, that Romanism as it is 
found in Brazil cannot rightly be called Christianity. 
As a result of Rome's influence in Brazil during these 
four hundred years, we find that the educated classes 
are almost entirely given over to radical skepticism in 
some one of its many forms, and that the uneducated 
masses are sunk in a system of superstitious idolatry that 
is much more closely akin to the ancient and modern 
paganism than to the religion of Christ Jesus. James 
Freeman Clarke, in his able work, "Ten Great Religions," 
speaking of the religion of ancient Rome, remarks : ''So 
ended the Roman religion; in superstition among the 
ignorant, in unbelief among the wise." These words 
may be applied with absolute truthfulness to the effect 
of Roman Catholicism on the people of Brazil. 

Weighty testimony in support of this grave indict- 
ment comes to us from Brazil itself, in the words of 
her very able thinker and writer, Snr. Ruy Bar- 
bosa, her brilliant representative at the Hague Confer- 
ence. In a remarkable book, published some thirty years 
ago, and from which frequent quotations will be made in 
this and the following chapter, Snr. Barbosa, referring to 
the effect of Romanism on the people of Brazil, said : 
''Once the faith of the people is destroyed, the upper 
classes drift into indift'erence, and the lower classes fall 
into the most deplorable idolatry." 

But some one may say: Granted that the facts are 
these — that the educated people of Brazil are almost to 
a man skeptical, and that extreme superstition prevails 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 71 

among the masses, does it follow that the responsibility 
should be laid at the door of Romanism? Universal 
facts must be explained by causes everywhere in opera- 
tion, and when we find in all Roman Catholic countries 
the same state of things that is found in Brazil, and find, 
too, that this state of things is in strong contrast with 
the conditions in Protestant lands, it is hard to resist the 
conclusion that the cause is to be found in Romanism 
itself. And not only so, it is believed that the careful 
consideration of the facts presented in this chapter and 
the following one will convince the unprejudiced reader 
that the natural, yea, the necessary result of Romanism, 
is to drive the educated into skepticism and to lead the 
ignorant into superstition and idolatry. 

I. Let Some of the Doctrines of Rome he Examined, 
that we may understand how her influence will tend to 
unbelief. For instance, a man is told that he must believe 
that the Bishop of Rome is absolutely infallible in any 
and every official utterance affecting doctrine or morals, 
and that he must believe that every pope from Peter — 
whom, against the clearest evidence to the contrary, they 
affirm to have been Bishop of Rome for twenty-five years 
— down to Pius X. has been thus infallible. And yet 
every student of history knows full well that numbers 
of popes have propagated doctrines which the Church 
of Rome itself now condemns as heresy, and that in 
many instances one pope has been stout to affirm what 
his predecessor was equally strong in denying. 

Again, a man is taught that the host, the bread made 
of flour and water and used by the priests of Rome in 
the communion, is, after its consecration by the priest, no 
longer bread, but has been transubstantiated, and has 
become flesh and bone and blood and spirit and divinity, 



J2 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

that it is Christ Jesus as truly as He is Christ who sits 
on the right hand of God the Father in Heaven. When 
told that it must be bread, for it has all the appearance 
of bread, the Romanist answers that it is a mystery, and 
asks if Christ did not change the water into- wine, and 
if so, whether God cannot change bread into flesh. Yes, 
we answer, but when Christ transubstantiated the water 
into wine, it ceased to be water and became wine. It 
was wine, and the best wine at the feast. To the senses 
it was wine, under analysis it would have shown the ele- 
ments of wine. But when the consecrated host appears 
to the five senses to be bread, when under chemical 
analysis it is seen to possess all of the elements of bread 
and none of the elements of flesh and bone and blood, 
can any rational being believe that it is not bread, but is 
the Lord Jesus Christ as truly and as really as he exists 
in heaven? To do so one must discredit the testimony 
of his five senses, subvert the very basis of human evi- 
dence, and do violence to the most fundamental laws 
of human reason. 

But not only is the man told that he must believe 
those things to be pure Christian doctrine ; he is further- 
more assured that unless he does believe them, he is 
accursed, is excommunicated, condemned to eternal death, 
and cut off from all hope of salvation. What wonder, 
then, that we hear men saying that truth is relative, 
and that a certain proposition may be true in religion, but 
false in science or philosophy? — a doctrine, this, as old 
as the time of Cicero, as we learn from a quotation made 
from "The Nature of the Gods," on page 341 of James 
Freeman Clark's first volume of "Ten Great Religions." 
Cicero makes the Pontifex Maximus sav: "I believe in 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 73 

the gods on the authority and tradition of our ancestors ; 
but if we reason, I shall reason against their existence." 

What wonder that men who reason feel the mind and 
conscience revolt against such teaching? What wonder, 
if the educated classes refuse to be guilty of such treason 
against the fundamental laws of thought and evidence? 
But when the man has been educated in a Romish home, 
and remembers that his ancestors for generations have 
been Romanists, he naturally feels that the traditional 
faith of his fathers must be best of them all ; and when 
he rejects this, he rejects all religions. "If this be Chris- 
tianity," he says, "I will have none of it." Thus it is that 
thinking men in papal lands become skeptics. 

II. The Attitude of Romanism toward Civil, Social, 
and Political Institutions, and Her Doctrines on these 
Subjects Drive Thinking Men of the Governing Class 
into Indifference, Opposition, and Skepticism. For cen- 
turies, Rome has claimed temporal power ; has asserted 
that the pope is a temporal lord; that his authority is 
supreme over all temporal rulers ; that he has a right to 
depose emperors, kings, and presidents, and to deprive 
them of all power and authority ; and that he has a right 
to absolve subjects from allegiance to their rulers, and to 
place the country under the ban, in case the faithful 
should refuse obedience to thd papal mandate. This 
papal doctrine, generally forgotten in these days of poli- 
tical liberty and individual freedom, is occasionally re- 
vived, and thinking men awake with a start, and wonder 
if such ideas can be possible in our day. 

There was a decided revival of bitterness and agita- 
tion on this subject caused by the publication, in 1864, 
by Pope Pius IX., oi his famous Syllabus, in which all 
of the marvellous claims above referred to, and many 



74 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

others equally marvellous, are clearly and dogmatically 
set forth. This agitation spread over Europe and South 
America. It was this that called forth some of Mr. 
Gladstone's povv^erful tracts. In Brazil, the doctrines of 
the Syllabus became a vital issue, and the agitation re- 
sulted in the imprisonment of certain bishops who under- 
took to put into execution the principles advocated by 
Pius, by excommunicating certain prominent free- 
masons and denying to them the rites of the church when 
the Syllabus had not received the sanction of the emperor. 
A considerable anti-papal literature was called forth 
in Brazil by this agitation. Joaquin da Saldan'ha Ma- 
rinho, a man prominent in the nation's political life, also 
a prominent mason, has four bulky volumes In which he 
attacks Rome, assailing her doctrines, her ceremonies, 
her priesthood, and shows her deleterious Influence on 
national life. But by far the most sober and the most 
able work produced by that anti-Romish propaganda was 
written by no less a man than Snr. Ruy Barbosa, the 
man who astonished the world some months ago by his 
able, eloquent and brilliant presentation of the cause of 
peace and arbitration, and by his strong defence of 
Brazil's rights, at the Hague Conference. It was Snr. 
Barbosa who thirty years ago took up the cudgels In 
defence of civil liberty and national rights in Brazil, as 
against the principles of the Syllabus. A remarkable 
book had appeared in Germany under the title "The 
Pope and the Council," prepared by a group of able men 
over the general signature "Janus." Snr. Barbosa trans- 
lated this book, and wrote an Introduction to it more 
voluminous than the book itself. This introduction Is a 
masterly arraignment of Romanism as a perversion of 
pure Christianity, and as an institution hostile to civil 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 75 

liberty, to social progress and to the larger interests of 
mankind. One is simply amazed at the author's wide 
learning, at his clear, firm grasp of the main points at 
issue, and especially at his knowledge of Scripture as 
bearing on the controversy between evangelical and papal 
Christianity. Frequent quotations will be made from 
this work, because no one knows the subject more thor- 
oughly than Snr. Barbosa. 

The Saviour said, ''My kingdom is not of this world" ; 
Rome says that her kingdom is of this world and is all 
of the world. Such are Pius' claims in the Syllabus, and 
in regard thereto Snr. Barbosa says: ''There (in the 
book he was translating) the sect of the priest-king was 
accurately classified as to its nature, its designs, and its 
social tendency; it was clearly proved that Romanism 
is not a religion, but a political organization, and that, 
too, the most vicious, the most unscrupulous, and the most 
destructive of all political systems." (Page 13 of 
Preface). For centuries, the Jesuit Order has been con- 
sidered the enemy of civil liberty and of popular insti- 
tutions, and in consequence, much odium has been heaped 
on the Jesuits. But men who see most deeply into things, 
see in Jesuitism only the soul, the most perfect mani- 
festation of the spirit of Roman Catholicism. On this 
point, Snr. Barbosa quotes Macaulay: 'Tn the Order of 
Jesus," says the wise Macaulay, "is concentrated the 
quintessence of the Catholic (Romish) spirit, and the 
history of the Jesuit Order is the history of the great 
catholic reaction. ... If the Jesuits are the bitterest 
enemies of liberty, intellectual and moral, it is that 
Romanism always has been so and still is, and the Jesuits 
are only members of Rome, simply practical revelations 
of the papal system in action, organized, armed, and 



"j^i The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

militant." (Introduction, p. 21.) In the same strain, 
our author writes : ''If Jesuitism is a perpetual conspir- 
acy against the peace that has for its basis liberty and 
parliamentary institutions, it is only because the church 
of the infallible pope hates all modern constitutions, as 
being in their very nature incompatible with the tem- 
poral power of the clergy" (Int., p. 6). Of this same 
order — the Jesuits — he says again : "The wisest work of 
darkness which the perversion of Christian morality 
could devise." 

Again, on the general subject of Rome as a political 
organization, and of her hostile attitude toward free 
civil institutions, Snr. Barbosa writes : 'Tf the bishop is 
systematically rebellious against constitutional authority, 
if he is a despot with his own subjects in the religious 
domain, and at the same time insubordinate to the civil 
law, it is because he is really the servant of the Romish 
hierarchy, and because Rome's rule of action has ever 
been her purpose to enslave the individual conscience 
of the clergy, and control the temporal power of the 
church. If the monks are the propagators of fanatic- 
ism, the debasers of Christian morals, it is because the 
history of papal influence for many centuries has been 
nothing more nor less than the story of the dissemina- 
tion of a new paganism, as full of superstition and of all 
unrighteousness as the mythology of the ancients — a new 
paganism organized at the expense of evangelical tradi- 
tions shamelessly falsified and travestied by the Roman- 
ists. ... If Rome wishes to refute this conclusion of 
ours, she will have to prove that she has kept her spiritual 
character free from the corrupting influence of the world. 
The opposite, however, is true; for the Romish church 
in all ages has been a power — religious scarcely in name, 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil ']J 

but always, inherently, essentially, and untiringly a poli- 
tical power." (Int., p. 6.) 

But this masterly accuser of Rome does not confine 
himself to abstract denunciation ; he brings history under 
tribute to substantiate his accusations, and two of his 
examples will here be noted. "Twice during the orhinous 
pontificate of this pope (Innocent III.) was the undying 
hatred of Rome to all reason and liberty manifested in a 
most signal and indelible manner. . First, when the 
anathema was hurled against the 'Magna Charta' of 
England, the first written formula of all modern repre- 
sentative constitutions. This charter of liberty was de- 
nounced by Innocent III. as ignominy and heresy. The 
other manifestation of Rome's spirit was the crusade 
against the Albigenses, whose capital crime was not their 
doctrines, but their freedom of thought, their contempt 
of papal authority, their bold criticism of the pontifical 
tyranny, with its pretensions, its theories and monstrous 
vices in an age when the expression 'as vile as a priest' 
was proverbial. ... It was in the effort tO' suppress 
this first insurrection of human intelligence against the 
theocratic despotism of the popes that St. Dominic, the 
burner of heretics, obtained his title of 'blessed,' and that 
the instrument for the subjugation of the conscience 
(the Inquisition) was made a permanent and a sacred 
institution." 

Unquestionably education is one of the most impor- 
tant and potent factors in national life, contributing 
powerfully to the intellectual, commercial and moral 
progress of the people. The public school systems of 
Germany, Switzerland and the United States are cer- 
tainly entitled to no small share of the honor of the de- 
velopment and progress of those countries. All states- 



78 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

men understand this, and they strive for the promotion 
of pubHc instruction. But in papal lands, they must 
count on the unremitting opposition of the clergy. The 
Syllabus of Pius IX. condemns all state education, all 
instruction of youth not under the direction and control 
of the church. (See Schaff-Herzog, Article "Syllabus.") 
As a practical commentary on the principles of the Sylla- 
bus in relation to- education, two incidents will be men- 
tioned. A year ago, a brilliant young minister of state 
in one of the most important commonwealths of the 
Brazilian Republic, a man who was bending all of his 
energies to the development of the public school system 
of his state, said to the writer: ''The greatest obstacle 
I have to overcome in my work in behalf of public in- 
struction is the opposition of the Romish clergy." An 
able young Brazilian who was placed at the head of the 
public schools of Lavias — the home of the writer — and 
who was devoting his best efforts to the work, said that 
the first move of the local clergy was to try, by all sorts 
of strategy, to obtain permission to teach the Romish 
catechism in the schools ; and that, when they found that 
this could not be managed, they began earnestly, per- 
sistently and systematically to oppose and to destroy his 
work. 

When intelligent men who love their country and de- 
sire its prosperity see in papal Christianity the most seri- 
ous obstacle to civil liberty and to stable government, 
when they recognize that Romanism is the greatest hind- 
rance to intellectual and material advancement, is it 
strange that they come to fear and even to hate this 
enemy? In view of all this, can we wonder that the 
large majority of the educated and governing class are 
confessedly radical skeptics of some one of the numerous 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 79 

schools ? And in view of all this, it may now be asked : 
Is not this skepticism the natural, yea, the inevitable 
result of this politico-ecclesiastical institution, of this 
degenerate and apostate form of Christianity? 

III. Let us next consider Romanism as a Moral 
Force, asking what is its influence on the general moral 
condition of the people, and to what conclusions the influ- 
ence thus exercised would lead thinking men. It must 
be admitted by all that religion should be the supreme 
influence in the moral uplift and regeneration of men 
and of nations, and that the relative value of religious 
beliefs will be in direct proportion to their power to 
purify, strengthen and ennoble the lives of men. Bearing 
this in mind, it is instructive to study moral conditions 
in Brazil and in papal lands generally. 

I't must be confessed that there is full enough of moral 
degradation in the best of lands to make a Christian hang 
his head and blush for shame; and it behooves us all to 
look first for the beam in our own eye. But a compari- 
son will show that moral depravity is far greater in 
Romish than in Protestant lands. In a supplementary 
chapter to "Seymour's Evenings with the Romanists," a 
m.ost valuable and instructive book, comparative statistics 
are published showing the conditions prevailing in the 
different countries and cities of Europe. Some of the 
figures given of the moral conditions in papal cities and 
countries are simply appalling. One can hardly believe 
that he is reading statistics taken from official sources. 
Nor is this distressing state of things confined to the 
papal lands of Europe ; in certain parts of Latin America, 
matters are still worse. A statement in Hubert W. Brown's 
book, "Latin America," in which he quotes Mr. W. E. 
Curtis as stating that in Ecuador seventy-five per cent. 



8o The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

of the children that are born are illegitimate, gives one 
a feeling of horror. It seems incredible. And this, be 
it remembered, in a land where the papal dominion has 
been absolute, when there is a Romish church to every 
one hundred and fifty of the population, and where one 
person in ten is a priest, a monk or a nun. One might be 
inclined to doubt the accuracy of this statement made by 
Mr. Curtis, were it not in line with statements made by 
Seymour in his book, and by other writers in regard to 
other Romish countries. The comparison of the figures 
taken from Curtis, Seymour and others in regard to con- 
ditions in Ecuador, in the papal states of Italy, and in 
other strongly Romish countries would lead one to believe 
that the degree of moral depravity is in proportion to the 
completeness of Rome's sway. It is a pleasure to state 
that in Brazil moral conditions are better, that the figures 
are not for one moment to be compared to those of 
Ecuador. Can it be because Rome's grip on the lives of 
the people of Brazil is much less firm than it is on those 
of Ecuador's population? 

The man who studies moral conditions in Romish 
countries will be at once impressed with the fact that a 
lower state of morals prevails than in countries where 
evangelical religion makes its influence felt, and that the 
ideas of the people generally are more lax. This will 
be felt in scores of ways, and the conviction will be borne 
in upon him irresistibly. And not only so, but he will 
be astounded to find that to a large extent religion and 
morals are divorced. What seems to a Protestant Chris- 
tian impossible, appears to be the rule in papal lands. 
Often times the most religious man in the community is 
the most depraved. One of the most absolutely aban- 
doned characters known to the writer, a man whose life 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 8i 

seems to be characterized by every conceivable vice, and 
is redeemed by not a single virtue, once told him in the 
blandest way possible that he was a most religious man, 
that he rarely failed to attend mass and the religious 
festivals, and that he was quite regular in his prayers. 
The lenten season of forty days, ending with the sol- 
emnities of holy week, is the time in which the Roman 
Catholic discharges his religious duties of the year. One 
would expect the people to show the effects of their 
prayers and devotions in improved lives when the season 
is ended ; but holy week is followed generally by a per- 
fect orgy of sin and moral corruption. 

Without doubt a large part of the responsibility for 
the lax morals of papal peoples rests with Romanism. 
The system of penances and indulgences deaden men's 
consciences, and gives them a low conception of the guilt 
of sin. Crimes and sins cannot be very serious matters 
when the sinner can so easily secure the assurance of 
pardon and so easily pay his debt. If he does not wish 
to fast and is averse to vain repetitions of prayers to his 
saints, he can, by means of a pecuniary consideration, re- 
lieve himself of the necessity of prayers and penances. 
It can be readily seen that such ideas destroy the concep- 
tion of sin as that heinous thing which God hates and 
that carries in itself the germs of eternal death. And this 
explains a fact noticed by missionaries in papal lands, 
and that at first causes great surprise, the fact that one 
so rarely sees a case of really deep conviction of sin. A 
missionary experience of twenty years will furnish one 
or two or three cases. The explanation is this — insuffi- 
cient ideas of God's ineffable purity and holiness of char- 
acter, and of the exceeding heinousness of sin, have low- 



82 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

ered the moral tone and destroyed, to a great extent, the 
acute consciousness of sin. 

But if a large measure of responsibility for the moral 
laxness found in papal lands is to be laid at the door of 
Romish doctrine, no less a measure, surely, is to be laid 
at the door of Rome's priesthood. The people of Brazil 
would lay by far the larger measure of it at the door of 
Brazil's priests. "Like priest, like people," is a true 
proverb. When those who should be the moral guides 
and examples of the people are men of depraved lives, 
men of unblushing immorality, this example of moral 
turpitude must react powerfully on the lives of the people 
themselves. Much has been said and written of the cor- 
ruption of the Romish priests in South American coun- 
tries, and the phrase "as immoral as a Brazilian priest" 
may be found in European literature, as though these 
were more proverbially depraved. They probably do not 
merit this distinction as compared with the priests of 
other Latin American countries, but surely the state of 
things among them is bad enough. Concubinage, open 
and unblushing, is common among them ; and refined 
sensibilities are shocked at the bare suggestion of the 
half of the sad story of moral depravity. Celibacy and 
the confessional have dragged the priesthood into depths 
of iniquity that are inconceivable, and along with them- 
selves they drag down to their level thousands of vic- 
tims. The following passage from Snr. Barbosa's pen, 
is most delicately put, but it suggests plainly what it 
would require volumes to narrate in full detail : "The 
most formidable theatre for the mission of the Jesuit is 
the family. The wife and the child easily fall into the 
hands of the priest, and, as happens in all Roman Cath- 
olic countries, the domestic priesthood of the father is 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 83 

entirely lost. How many heart-breaking sorrows are 
hidden from curious eyes under the domestic roof, cal- 
amities that embitter the noblest affections, destroy all 
lawful rights, and incapacitate so many souls. How many 
of these calamities, endured in silence and carefully hid- 
den from the public gaze, have left in our lives deep and 
painful furrows. . . . Confidence, which is the neces- 
sary privilege of the husband, the essential bond of union 
between two souls, is shared with the confessor, or rather, 
is entirely usurped by him" (p. 170). 

The conditions in themselves are sufficiently distress- 
ing, but they become more distressing still when we know 
that the state of things is perfectly well known to the 
ecclesiastical authorities, who cannot or will not remedy 
the evils. That such is the case, the following extract 
from an Encyclical of Leo XHL, published in 1897, and 
quoted in "Protestant Missions in South America," p. 205, 
will more than prove: "In every diocese ecclesiastics 
break all bounds and deliver themselves up to manifold 
forms of sensuality, and no voice is lifted up to imperi- 
ously summon pastors to their duties. The clerical press 
casts aside all sense of decency and loyalty in its attacks 
on those who differ, and lacks controlling authority to 
bring it to its proper use. There is assassination and 
calumny, the civil laws are defied, bread is denied to the 
enemies of the church, and there is no one to inter- 
pose. . . . As a rule, they (the priests) are ever absent 
where human misery exists, unless paid as chaplains, or 
a fee is given. On the other hand, you (the clergy) are 
always to be found in the houses of the rich, or wherever 
gluttony may be indulged in, wherever the choicest wines 
may be freely obtained." This document from his Infal- 
liable Holiness should be considered authoritative; none 



84 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

can contest the infallible truth of these statements. But 
do these words not confirm in toto the truth of all that 
has been said as to the moral depravity of the clergy, 
and as to the fact of this condition being known to the 
superior authorities who utterly fail to remedy the evil? 
Many of the superiors do not want the evils remedied, 
because they are part and parcel of the corruption ; many 
others, who would correct abuses, cannot do so, because 
the application of discipline would leave their dioceses 
without parish priests to administer the sacraments and 
attend to the necessary ecclesiastical functions. To such 
an extent has the evil grown, that probably not one priest 
in ten would be left, were discipline applied to all who 
habitually offend against the most fundamental rules of 
moral purity. 

This picture is sad indeed, but it is not overdrawn. 
But what will be the effect of this state of things on the 
minds of thinking men, of men who are patriots, who 
long to see their nation great and strong, and who under- 
stand clearly that only righteousness, only moral rectitude 
in individual and social life, can exalt a nation, while sin 
is a shame to any people ? When thinking men understand 
that Romanism as a system is in very large measure re- 
sponsible for the moral conditions that exist and that 
hinder the growth of the nation, is it not natural that 
they should say "If this is Christianity, away with it"? 
Is it strange that their minds and consciences revolt 
against this travesty on religion, and that they drift into 
unbelief ? 

What shall be said, though, about this institution that 
calls itself a branch, and the only true branch of Chris- 
tendom ? What shall be said of this system which, instead 
of drawing men, with the cords of irresistible love and 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 85 

goodness, to the feet of the Master, drives them into the 
cold, dark mists and fogs of blank unbelief? Can such a 
system be called Christianity? Is it uncharitable and un- 
christian to urge that the gospel of Jesus Christ in its 
purity and simplicity be preached to a people who for 
centuries have had no light save the darkness of Romish 
superstition and sin? In the light of what has been said, 
do not the Brazilians and all the peoples of the Latin 
America need the saving influence of the gospel of 
Christ, and should not Brazil and the papal lands of 
America be considered proper and needy fields for 
Evangelical Missions? 



86 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 



CHAPTER V. 

THE nation's need : BRAZIL AS A MISSION FIELD. 

(Continued.) 

In the preceding chapter the question was frankly 
raised as to whether or not Brazil, being a Roman Cath- 
olic country, needs the work of Evangelical Missions. 
The question was raised because many worthy people in 
our Evangelical communions have serious doubts on the 
subject, and a frank discussion of it was attempted. As 
a result of the investigation and discussion it was found 
that after four hundred years of Rome's sway in Brazil, 
the educated classes are, almost to a man, given over to 
some form of radical skepticism, and that the unlettered 
masses are sunk in idolatrous superstition. In that study 
of the question, it was seen why it is that Romanism 
drives thinking men in skepticism : in the present chapter 
Romanism as a Religion will be studied, and the pagan 
and idolatrous character of the system will be shown. 

Let Snr. Barbosa's words be recalled at this point. 
He speaks of the lower classes falling into ''the most de- 
plorable idolatry," once faith be destroyed ; and he refers 
to Romanism as "3. new paganism, as full of superstition 
and all unrighteousness as the mythology of the ancients, 
— a new paganism organized at the expense of evangelical 
traditions shamelessly falsified and travestied." Thus this 
learned Brazilian, who is neither a missionary nor a mem- 
ber of any Protestant communion, confirms most fully 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 87 

the statements made on this subject by all missionaries 
who have labored in Roman Catholic countries, and of 
all earnest souls who have come into intimate contact 
with Romanism in papal lands and have had opportunity 
to know it as it is. 

I. In Its Outward Forms and Ceremonies, Ro- 
manism is Pure Paganism. This will be most clearly 
seen by a comparison of Romanism with Buddhism. The 
following remarkable passage on this subject is taken 
from James Freeman Clarke's ''Ten Great Religions," 
Vol. I, p. 139 et seq. Mr. Clarke' can surely be accused 
of no bigotry in his opposition to Romanism; the objec- 
tion brought against him by most Evangelical Christians 
would be that he is rather too liberal. Yet he says : 
*'So numerous are the resemblances between the customs 
of this system (Buddhism) and those of the Romish 
church, that the first Catholic missionaries who encoun- 
tered the priests of Buddha were confounded, and thought 
that Satan had been mocking their sacred rites. Father 
Bury, a Portuguese missionary, when he beheld the 
Chinese bonzes tonsured, using rosaries, praying in an 
unknown tongue, and kneeling before images, exclaimed 
in astonishment : 'There is not a piece of dress, a sacer- 
dotal function, not a ceremony of the court of Rome, 
which the Devil has not copied in this country.' Mr. 
Davis (Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, II, 
491) speaks of 'the celibacy of the Buddhist clergy, and 
the monastic life of the societies of both sexes ; to which 
might be added their strings of beads, their manner of 
chanting prayers, their incense, and their candles." Mr. 
Medhurst ("China," London, 1857) mentions the image 
of a virgin called the "Queen of Heaven," having an 
infant in her arms, and holding a cross. Confession of 



88 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

sins is regularly practised. Father Hue, in his "Recollec- 
tions of a Journey in Tartary, Tibet, and China," (Haz- 
litt's translation), says: 'The cross, the mitre, the dalma- 
tica, the cope, which the grand lamas wear on their 
journeys, or when performing some ceremony out of 
the temple, — the service with double choirs, the psalmody, 
the exorcisms, the censer suspended from five chains, and 
which you can open or close at pleasure, — the benedic- 
tion given by the lamas by extending the right hand over 
the heads of the faithful, — the chaplet, ecclesiastical celi- 
bacy, religious retirement, the worshipping of the saints, 
the fasts, the processions, the litanies, the holy water, — all 
these are analogies between the Buddhists and ourselves.' 
And in Thibet, there is also a Dalai Lama, who is a sort 
of Buddhist pope. Such numerous and striking analogies 
are difficult to explain." ''They are difficult to explain," 
says Mr. Clarke, and indeed they are, unless one is willing 
to recognize their common origin. That this passage may 
not appear an exaggeration of Protestant writers, let it 
be carefully noted that in most of the passage, Mr. Clarke 
is quoting from Roman Catholic writers, the first Romish 
missionaries to Asia. 

This close resemblance between Romanism and 
Buddhism, or that mixture of Buddhism and Brah- 
minism that is called modern Hinduism, may be 
learned from a passage from the life of Vasco da Gama 
by Latino Coelho, one of the most popular Portuguese 
authors of the last century. In a strain of delicious 
humor, this author, who is not a Protestant writer, be it 
remembered, tells us how Da Gama and his twelve com- 
panions were taken into a Hindu pagoda, which, from the 
very striking resemblances, they took to be a Romish 
church, of the Nestor ian sect, and how they, dropping 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 89 

upon their knees before an image which they supposed 
to be an image of Mary, devoutly paid their devotions, 
"All the chroniclers are agreed," he says, ''as to the fact 
of this well meant worship of dulias have been offered 
by Gama and his twelve companions to the hideous ef- 
figies of Siva and Vishnu." Romanists in a Hindu 
pagoda, bowing before the image of heathen divinities 
and imagining that they were in a Romish church. This 
story so humorously told by Latino^ Coelho speaks more 
convincingly than pages of cogent reasoning as to the 
close resemblance between Roman Catholicism and the 
paganism of China and India. 

The fact that Romanism is pagan in form will be 
clearly seen, too, by comparing the religion of papal 
Rome with that of pagan Rome. The resemblances are 
very numerous and very striking. On this point, James 
Freeman Clarke writes : 'Tt has not always been sufh- 
ciently considered how much the Latin church was a 
reproduction, on a higher plane, of the old Roman Com- 
monwealth. The resemblance between the Roman Cath- 
olic ceremonies and those of pagan Rome has been often 
noticed. The Roman Catholic Church has borrowed 
from paganism saints' days, incense, lustrations, conse- 
crations of sacred places, votive offerings, relics, wink- 
ing nodding sweating and bleeding images ; holy water, 
vestments, etc. But the Church of Rome itself, in its 
central idea of authority, is a reproduction of the Roman 
state religion, which was a part of the Roman state. The 
Eastern churches were sacerdotal and religious; the 
Church of Rome added to these elements that of an or- 
ganized political authority. It was the resurrection of 
Rome, — Roman ideas rising into a higher life. The 
Roman Catholic Church, at first an aristocratic republic. 



90 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

like the Roman state, afterwards became, like the Roman 
state, a disguised despotism. The Papal Church, there- 
fore, is a legacy of ancient Rome. And just as the 
Roman state was first a help and then a hindrance to the 
progress of humanity, so it has been with the Roman 
Catholic Church." ("Ten Great Religions," p. 349 et 
seq.) The same author, describing, in a striking passage, 
the corruption and death of the ancient Roman paganism, 
describes with equal accurac}^ and force the decline and 
the spiritual death of modern papal Rome : ''As the old 
faith died, more ceremonies were added; for as life goes 
out, forms come in. As the winter of unbelief lowers 
the stream of piety, the ice of ritualism accumulates along 
its banks." (Page 340.) Thus we see in the Romanism 
of to-day the reproduction of the polity, the external 
forms and ceremonies of pagan Rome; and the present 
contention is that Roman Catholicism is, in its form, 
paganism. 

The truth of our present thesis, namely, that papal 
Rome is, as to its form, a modern paganism, will be still 
further emphasized by a comparison of it with the reli- 
gion of the old pagan Aztecs of Mexico. Mr. Brown, 
in his book on "Latin America," to which complimen- 
tary reference has already been made, has, both in his 
chapter on "The Pagans" and in that on "The Papists,*' 
some very suggestive passages on this subject. The fol- 
lowing is a fair sample, and will doubtless create an appe- 
tite for more. "We have no desire," writes Mr. Brown, 
"to give undue weight to the resemblance between the 
heathen system and its Roman Catholic successor; yet 
we cannot fail to see that resemblances did exist, and the 
Roman Catholic missionaries were the first to discover 
them, so that the devout Romanist can hardly blame us 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 91 

for following in their footsteps. . . . The resemblances 
on which special emphasis should be laid are not in creed, 
but in method. They have nothing to do with what is 
of the essence of Christianity, but with those additions 
made by Romanism which have served to increase the 
wealth and power of the church, and give well-nigh abso- 
lute control to the priesthood over the heart and con- 
science of the people. Both systems reveal keen political 
insight and a deep understanding of human nature. 

In the transition from the old to the new ecclesiastical 
control there were, of course, many real conversions. For 
the majority of the Indians, however, it was simply a 
transfer of allegiance from one set of priests to another. 
Once the force of arms had proved the Roman Catholic 
saints and soldiers to be stronger, the Indian, except when 
he worshipped his old idols in secret, simply abandoned 
them for the God and saints of Romanism ; the bloody 
sacrifice of the old worship for the bloodless sacrifice 
of the mass. He still bowed before images, only now of 
Christ, the Virgin Mother and the saints. He still had 
penance and confession, processions, fasts and feasts, 
convent schools and religious holidays. In what I have 
to say of Roman Catholic missions, these points, together 
with the bodily transfer of heathen elements into Romish 
feasts, will be taken up again. Ponder, however, this 
fact, that it was where paganism had reached its highest 
ceremonial development that Romanism won its largest 
acquisitions. Has this fact no significance?" (Page 48 
et seq.) 

One of the most thorough and scholarly discussions of 
this whole subject of the relation between the religion 
of papal Rome and the great pagan religions of ancient 
and modern times is that given by the Rev. Alexander 



92 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

Hislop, of the U. F. Presbyterian Church of Scotland, 
in his book entitled 'The Two Babylons : or the Papal 
Worship proved to be the Worship of Nimrod and his 
Wife." 

Mr. Hislop maintains that, in their distinctive charac- 
teristics, ancient Babylon and modern Rome are as one. 
The objects of worship, the festivals, the doctrines, the 
discipline, the rites, the ceremonies, and the religious 
orders, — in a word, all that is distinctly characteristic 
of modern Roman Catholicism, had in the paganism of 
ancient Babylon its clear and evident counterpart. Let 
two quotations be made. "The ancient Babylonians, just 
as the modern Romans, recognized in words the unity of 
the Godhead; and, while worshiping innumerable minor 
deities, as possessed of a certain influence on human af- 
fairs, they distinctly acknowledged that there was one 
infinite and almighty Creator, supreme over all." Here 
we have Rome's worship of the Supreme God along with 
her worship of innumerable saints. Again, "The Babylo- 
nians in their popular religion, supremely worshiped a 
Goddess Mother and a Son, who was represented in pic- 
tures and in images as an infant or child in his mother's 
arms; From Babylon, this worship of the jMother and 
Child spread to the ends of the earth. In Egypt, the 
Mother and the Child were worshiped under the names of 
Isis and Osiris. In India, even to this day, as Isa and 
Iswara; in Asia, as Cybele and Deoius; in pagan Rome, 
as Fortuna and Jupiter-puer, or Jupiter, the bo}^; in 
Greece, as Ceres the great Mother with the babe at her 
breast, or as Irene, the goddes of Peace, with the boy 
Plutus in her arms ; and even in Tibet, China, and Japan, 
the Jesuit missionaries were astonished to find the coun- 
terpart of j\Iadonna and her child as devoutly worshiped 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 93 

as in papal Rome itself; Shing Moo, the Holy Mother in 
China, being represented with a child in her arms, and a 
glory around her head, exactly as if a Roman Catholic 
artist had been employed to set her up." (Page 20.) 
What could be added to a passage like this to make the 
demonstration of the practical of oneness of modern Ro- 
manism with the pagan religions of the world absolutely 
convincing? But this is just a sample of what Mr. Hislop 
gives his readers throughout his book. The work needs 
to be closely read to be appreciated. 

The close, numerous and remarkable resemblances 
between modern Roman Catholicism and the paganism of 
India, China, Babylon, Mexico and Rome have now been 
noted, and no one can read of these things without being 
profoundly impressed. But what is the explanation of 
these so striking resemblances between religious systems 
found in countries so remote, and in epochs so distant 
one from another? Is it that they all come from a com- 
mon source in Babylon, as Mr. Hislop thinks? That 
will doubtless explain a great many of the analogies and 
resemblances ; but Is there not another and a still deeper 
reason to be found in the fact that there is an essential 
unity in all false religions, in the very nature of the 
case? There will be differences, due to local environ- 
ment and to many secondary circumstances; but the 
essential features of the various systems, developed in 
various lands, will be the same. All of these paganisms 
are man-made religions ; and all man-made religions will 
be similar, will show the hand of their maker. 

Of these man-made religious, Romanism easily 
ranks first. Given a certain element of the Christian reli- 
gion as a starting point, as a foundation on which to 
build, and the human mind and weak human nature will 



94 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

construct a religious system very similar to Romanism. 
It has often occurred to the writer that all that Rome 
has added to the Christian religion, and the larger part 
of modern Roman Catholicism belongs to this human- 
conceived element, has been conceived with consummate 
art and wisdom to appeal to weak and fallen human 
nature. Nothing could be devised that would appeal more 
powerfully to unregenerate human nature, to the human 
mind unenlightened by God's Word, than these man-made 
doctrines of Rome. Purgatory ; prayers to the saints ; 
prayers, masses and other offerings, made in behalf of 
the souls of deceased loved ones; above all, the concep- 
tion of Mary as the embodiment of all that is most loving, 
most tender, most compassionate, most merciful; these 
and other doctrines of Rome's invention are perfect mas- 
terpieces for the entraping of unwary souls, who have 
not been guided by the clear light of divine Revelation. 
II. Not only is Romanism pagan in form, it can 

BE SHOWN WITH EQUAL CLEARNESS THAT THE SYSTEM IS 
ALSO PAGAN IN SPIRIT AND IN MANY OF ITS DOC- 
TRINES. The doctrines of baptismal regeneration, of pur- 
gatory, of prayers for the dead, of extreme unction, and 
of the sacrifice of the mass can all be traced, as Mr. 
Hislop shows, through more recent sources on back to 
Babylon. A comparison between Buddhism and Roman- 
ism on this point will be most instructive. Both in 
Buddhism and in Romanism, salvation consists in escape 
from evil and suffering, and not in conformity to the 
divine image and pattern as taught in Biblical Christianity. 
In both systems, a man's salvation is obtained by his 
own merit, that is, by the work of his own hands, and 
not by faith in a divinely appointed and vicarious substi- 
tute, as is so clearly taught in God's Word. In Buddhism 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 95 

and in Romanism the motive to charity and good works 
is a selfish one — namely, personal reward in one's salva- 
tion — and not love to God and to man, as given in the 
gospel of Christ. Thus the two systems transform char- 
ity, the queen of the Christian virtues, into a system of 
refined selfishness. In both, the idea of purification by 
sufifering after death is prominent: in Romanism, it is 
purification by the pains and in the fires of purgatory; 
in Buddhism, it is purification by successive reincarna- 
tions. In Buddhism, the God is Buddha himself; and in 
Romanism, the pope, in fulfilment of the prophecy of 
II Thess. ii. 4, is coming to receive divine honors. Snr. 
Barbosa, in a foot-note on page 91, quotes from a kind 
of formula, organized by the Jesuits, for the confession 
of faith by certain neo-romanists toward the close of the 
seventeenth century, the following: "We confess that 
the most Holy Father (that is, the pope) should receive 
divine honors, and that too, with the most profound genu- 
flections, as if in the presence of Christ himself." Is that 
not horrible blasphemy? And do not these things prove 
the point at present under consideration, and show con- 
clusively that Romanism, in doctrine, spirit and essence, 
as well as in outward forms, is a modern paganism? 

III. Again, it may be affirmed that a careful study of 
the subject will lead one irresistibly to the conviction that 
Romanism, in its True Genius and Character, is 
Subversive of the Fundamental Teachings of the 
Divinely Revealed Religion of Christ. That is a tre- 
mendous indictment, but the charge can be made good. 

I. Romanism practically nullifies the authority of the 
Bible as the source of religious teaching, and sets up in 
its place the authority of fallible man. The Bible, ac- 
cording to Romish teaching, is of no value, but is rather 



96 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

dangerous, unless interpreted by the church; and the 
church's interpretation must be accepted as final, even 
though it may do violence to every known rule of exe- 
gesis and to every principle of sound common sense. 
Once this proposition of Romanism is accepted, the gates 
are open to the introduction of the most absurd and un- 
scriptural doctrines, as in the case of transubstantiation, 
the mass, celibacy and papal infallibility. The following 
passages, quoted by Barbosa from the confession of faith 
formulated by the Jesuits and already referred to above, 
while not taken from official doctrinal symbols of the 
Church of Rome, do however, set forth clearly the Romish 
position on this subject: "We confess that all the new 
ceremonies and ordinances instituted by the pope, foreign 
to or inherent in the Scriptures, and all that he has or- 
dained, is true, divine and Iwly, and men generally should 
prize it more than the commandments of the living God." 
"We confess that the Scriptures are imperfect, and noth- 
ing more than a dead letter, unless explained by the 
Roman pontiff, or until the reading thereof has been 
permitted to the people at large." (Quoted in foot-note 
on page 91.) 

Do not these propositions practically destroy the au- 
thority of God's Word? And when that is done, is not 
the divine authority of Christianity destroyed? and are 
not the fundamental teachings of the gospel subverted? 

2. The objects of worship in Roman Catholicism are 
anti-biblical and anti-christian. Worship is the supreme 
act of the human soul, and when the objects of worship 
are not divine, the worship is pagan worship, and conse- 
quently, utterly subversive of the teachings of Chris- 
tianity. The Word of God teaches that God himself is 
the one and only object worthy of man's worship; but 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 97 

Rome teaches that her scores of saints, the angels, and 
especially the Virgin Mary, should be worshiped by the 
faithful. It is true that they try to draw a distinction 
between the worship offered to God and that offered to 
Mary, and that offered to the saints. But it is a dis- 
tinction without a difference: their reHgious teachers are 
unable to give any satisfactory distinction between the 
different kinds of worship, and how could we expect 
the ignorant masses to do so ? Adoration, in its original 
meaning (ad-orare, pray to) gives us the true idea of 
worship. When the Romanist prays to the saints or to 
Mary he worships them; and how can he pray to the 
saints in heaven without attributing to them the divine 
attributes of omnipresence, omniscience, etc.? and this 
is of the very essence of idolatry — giving to the creature 
what should be given to the Creator alone. 

Not only are these creatures of God put alongside of 
the Creator to be the sharers of the worship that should 
be offered to Him alone, all who are in the least familiar 
with the conditions in papal lands know full well that 
the creature comes to usurp and monopolize the worship 
of the faithful. The late Dr. Thos. E. Peck, of Union 
Theological Seminary, in Virginia, was wont to say that 
if we would know the true character of the religion of 
a people, we should examine, not so^ much their doc- 
trinal confessions, but the worship and the devotional 
books of the faithful. That is a true criterion; and if 
we judge the Roman Catholic religion by the devotional 
acts of the common people and by their devotional liter- 
ature, we shall certainly conclude that the papists "wor- 
ship and serve the creature more than the Creator." The 
most popular devotional books of the Romanists will be 
a revelation to any one who will take the trouble to read 



q8 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

them. The prayers are largely addressed to the saints 
and to Mary; and even when addressed to God, the 
saints will somewhere come in for a good share before 
the prayer is finished. 

But the most popular divinity of the pantheon of mod- 
ern Rome is the Virgin Mary. She may be said to be 
supreme in the devotion and in the worship of Roman 
Catholics. Mr. Seymour, in his book already mentioned, 
''Evenings with the Romanists," quotes a remark made 
to him, with very evident pleasure and gratification, by a 
priest in Rome, to the effect that it was quite evident that 
the religion of Rome was becoming more and more "the 
religion of Mary." Protestants generally are shocked by 
such statements ; they find it hard to believe them, and 
are disposed to attribute them to prejudice and exaggera- 
tion on the part of missionaries. But no impartial person 
can live in close contact with Romanism in papal lands, 
even for a short time, without becoming fully convinced 
that the priest in Rome spoke truly when he said tO' Mr. 
Seymour that the religion of Rome is becoming more 
and more the religion of Mary. The worship of and 
devotion to Mary is the Holy of Holies of the Roman 
Catholic faith. One may attack the doctrine of purga- 
tory, of the mass, of the worship of images, and no ob- 
jection will be made; he may declaim loudly against the 
immoralities of the priests and show the great evils aris- 
ing from the confessional, and he will elicit the applause 
of his audience ; but if he touches on the doctrines con- 
cerning Mary and her worship, he at once sees that he 
has aroused animosity. A man may utter the most hor- 
rible blasphemies against Christ and against God without 
arousing half the indignation he will arouse by calling in 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 99 

question the propriety of Mary's worship or the efficacy 
and value of her mediation. 

To the Roman Catholic, Mary represents the supreme 
conception of tenderness, gentleness, compassion and 
mercy. All that the ardent, mystic of Protestantism attri- 
butes to Christ as the loving, tender, compassionate 
Saviour, ever ready to hear the cry of his little ones, 
never turning away from the helpless ones — all this the 
Romanist gives to Mary, and is sure that he is right, 
for is not woman more tender and merciful than man? 
is not the mother, rather than the father, the impersona- 
tion of gentleness and compassion? Such is Rome's ar- 
gument, based on human relations, by means of which 
she would entirely set aside the clear, unmistakable teach- 
ings of the Scriptures, and thus subvert the fundamental 
tenets of the Christian faith. *'We confess," the Jesuits 
taught their converts to say, ''that the Holy Virgin Mary 
should be held in greater esteem by men and angels than 
Christ himself, the Son of God." (Quoted by Barbosa, 
page 91.) What more could pagan blasphemy say? 

3. The Mode of Worship in Romanism is Anti-Bibli- 
cal and Subversive of the fundamental teachings of the 
gospel. The first commandment of the decalogue deter- 
mines and limits the object of man's worship; the second 
determines and limits the manner in which that worship 
should be offered. Jesus taught the Samaritan woman, at 
Jacob's well, that only spiritual worship is acceptable to 
God. Not so, thinks and teaches Rome ; worship should 
be given by means of images of Christ ; of the Spirit, in 
the form of a dove ; of the Father Eternal, sometimes 
represented as an aged man with long flowing hair and 
beard, and sometimes — as in Spain, referred to by His- 
lop — by an image with three heads on one body, symboli- 



loo The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

cal of the triune nature of Jehovah. Not content with the 
simple worship authorized by God who is a Spirit, Ro- 
manism organizes vast processions, with images, priests 
in flowing robes, the smoke of incense ascending, with 
candles and brass bands, with all the pomp and para- 
phernalia of a vast and sensuous ritual, seeking by every 
art to impress and appeal to man's sensuous nature; and 
this she calls true worship. ''As the winter of unbelief 
lowers the stream of piety," says James Freeman Clarke, 
''the ice of ritualism accumulates along its banks." Will- 
worship is idolatry. 

4. The teachings of Rome Subvert the Biblical Dos- 
trines of the Atonement. The Scriptures teach that 
Christ Jesus is the only Saviour of sinners, that "there 
is none other name under heaven, given among men 
whereby we must be saved" ; Rome says, not so, 
but that all the saints of her calendar have power to 
aid in the sinner's salvation, while she has given 
to the Virgin Mary every title indicative of saving 
power and grace that is given in the Scriptures to the 
Saviour alone. The Bible teaches that the sufferings and 
death of Christ are the one, only, and all-sufficient ground 
for man's pardon, justification, adoption and eternal re- 
demption ; Rome says no, the mass also is a true sacrifice 
for sin, efficacious for the living and the dead, while pen- 
ances and the sufferings of purgatory are also necessary 
to complete or supplement the work of Christ. God's 
Word teaches us that "there is one God and one Mediator 
between God and man, the man Christ Jesus." Rome in- 
sists, not so, the saints, and especially the Virgin Mary, 
are also mediators, whose aid and advocacy we shoulc? 
constantly seek and whose efficient protection it is dan- 
gerous to neglect. Christ may be the mediator with God, 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil ioi 

but he being distant and so holy in his divine majesty, 
we need the saints and the Virgin to be mediators be- 
tween us and Christ. These doctrines are taught, 
and so thoroughly and persistently taught that, in 
Brazil, the saints and the Virgin are looked upon in the 
devotions of the people as those to whom, in the first 
place, and with most confidence, sinners should look for 
salvation. One constantly hears the people say : "Having 
our Lady (Mary) as my advocate, I have nothing to 
fear." Are not these teachings contrary to and clearly 
subversive of the fundamental doctrines of Bible Chris- 
tianity in regard to the atonement — confessedly one of 
the cardinal doctrines of religion? 

Such, then, is Romanism in Brazil. It is a system 
pagan in form, largely pagan in spirit, and whose doc- 
trines are subversive of many of the most fundamental 
and most precious teachings of the religion of Christ. 
Should such a system be considered a true branch of 
the Church of Christ? Nay, verily. 

Now, lest those who do not know Romanism inti- 
mately should think that what has been said is a greatly 
exaggerated statement made by one who, in the very 
nature of the case, would have a distorted and unchari- 
table view of the matter, let Snr. Barbosa be heard again, 
and be it remembered again, that he is neither a mission- 
ary nor a Protestant. In regard to what has been accom- 
plished, what the instrumentality, and where the real 
responsibility for the change should rest, he says : "All 
the impious invocations with which the 'curia' has pagan- 
ized Catholicism, from the materialistic worship of the 
'Sacred Heart of Jesus' to the devotion rendered to the 
'Sacred Heart of Mary' — all this superstitious mysticism 
by which mariolatry and the worship of images has been 



102 Thz Evangelical Ix\-asion of Brazil 

propagated to the detriiiieni cf the spiritual worship of 
God, all of this is the work of the Jesuits ; but in it all, 
the Jesuits have been nothing more than the active agents 
of the papal sovereignty." (Page 29. ^ 

As to the means employed to accomplish this sad trans- 
formation, our author informs us that "All the hidden 
attractions of music, of Hghts, of pyrotechnics, of mili- 
tary- pomp, all the refinements of luxury, all the seduc- 
tions that captivate the senses, are combined, refined, and 
made cheap, in order to convert religion, which ought 
to be a spontaneous and i"::::a:er:al homage of the heart 
to God, into an endless feast, noisy, intoxicating, and 
utterly incompatible with the hidden and silent commu- 
nion of the soul w-ith the Creator." (Page 169.) 

As to the results finally and definitely produced he in- 
forms us as follows: Essentially altered in its morals 
and in its faith by the corrupting assimilation of the 
sensualistic principle which is, always has been, and 
always will be the ruin of all religions that are not con- 
tent with authority over the conscience, Christianity', in 
becoming Romanized, was transformed into a deleterious 
element, which in its fermentation wastes and decom- 
poses societv'." And once more : "All that in Catholicism 
was pure, divine, and truly sublime, ever\i;hing that 
tended to estabHsh between God and man that intimate 
communion which is the essence of Christian worship. 
was obliterated or proscribed. ^\'hat remains is a s}-mbol 
without soul and without truth, food for the superstitious 
creduHt}- of the ignorant, and a cloak for the feigned and 
calculating skepticism of the educated minorit}." (Pages 
167 and 168.) Is there a single charge in the indictment 
against Romanism in the preceding pages that is not 
abundantlv confirmed in these eloquent passages from 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 103 

Snr. Barbosa's pen? In the statements that Rome has 
paganized Christianity ; that the forms are pagan ; that 
the spirit and the doctrines of Rome are subversive of 
the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith, this able 
Brazilian writer fully concurs. 

What has been said on the question of the essentially 
pagan character of the ceremonies and the spirit and doc- 
trines of Romanism has been rather abstract in character. 
Did space allow, concrete examples of these pagan forms, 
of the influence of this paganizing spirit, and of the re- 
sults of this subverting of Christian doctrines could be 
given without number. The very best proof possible of 
the essentially pagan character of modern Roman Catho- 
licism is the witnessing of the processions of Holy Week, 
or those in honor of Mary, celebrated the last of May, 
the month especially devoted to the worship of the Virgin. 
Mr. Brown, in ''Latin America," page 104 ef seq, quotes 
from another book, "Brazil and the Brazilians," some 
amusing incidents, also a very striking account of a pro- 
cession in Brazil. This and other similar passages will 
well repay the purchase and the reading of the book. 

A few samples of the devotional reading prepared for 
the people of Brazil, or a few specimens of the pulpit 
ministrations of the most popular pulpit orators of Romish 
lands, would help to the clearer understanding of the 
religious conditions of papal peoples and of the causes 
responsible therefor. The story is told in some one of 
the numerous booklets celebrating the glories of St. 
Joseph as advocate, of a serious altercation between St. 
Joseph and St. Peter, that almost resulted in a great 
revolution in heaven. St. Peter had refused to admit one 
of St. Joseph's ardent devotees, on the ground that he 
was too wicked to enter the celestial world. This alter- 



104 The Evaxgelical Invasiox of Brazil 

cation became so serious that St. Joseph was about to 
leave heaven with his worshipers. ]\Iary,, as a loyal wife, 
thought she ought to go with her husband, and she and 
her worshipers prepared to leave too. Then Jesus, as a 
loving son, thought he wanted to be where his Mother 
was, so was calHng together his worshipers to join the 
exodus. It appeared that the celestial world was about 
to become depopulated, and Peter was forced to terms. 
!Moral: St. Joseph is the most powerful of advocates 
for the wicked. 

Padre Antonio Meira was perhaps the most famous 
of the pulpit orators of Portugal. He spent part of his 
hfe in Brazil, so his sermons are read as great models 
of sacred eloquence in both countries. In 1644, he 
preached a sermon in Lisbon on the glories of St. Thereza 
w^hich has some of the most remarkable specimens of 
pulpit ministrations to be found in all literature. The 
speaker mentions a number of favors shown by Christ 
to Thereza. The first was his marriage to her in the 
presence and with the approval of Joseph and !Mary. This 
marriage seems to have been celebrated in heaven. The 
second favor was his love for her so great as to lead 
him to say that had he not created the heavens for other 
reasons, he would have done so for love of her alone. 
The preacher tells his audience that Thereza's love, in 
Christ's estimation, outweighed all else besides ; and the 
third favor shown her was Jesus' undertaking to allay 
her jealousy of ]\Iary ]\Iagdalene b}' assuring her that his 
loA'e for ]\Iagdalene was an earthly love, but that his love 
for her (Thereza) was the love in heaven. Without 
doubt, this will match amthing in all literature for its 
material conception of heaven — more like !Mohammedan- 
ism than Christianit}^, — and for the curdling impiety and 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 105 

blasphemy of it. What wonder that the gentleman, who 
called the writer's attention to the passage and kindly 
translated it into English, should have felt his hair rise 
on end when he first met with it, and saw the length to 
which the preacher had gone in his sensuous and mate- 
rialistic blasphemy? Can such preaching of such a faith 
sanctify human lives and save the souls of sinful men ? 

Brazil does need the influence of the gospel of Jesus 
Christ; and with the best spirits among them, it is a 
conscious need. The intelligent, well informed Brazilian 
does not resent the work of Evangelical Missions as im- 
pertinent or presumptuous interference. He welcomes 
the work and the worker, recognizing that it means a new 
and wholesome influence in his country. The attitude 
of hundreds of individuals shows that this is the state 
of mind of the best people ; the expressions of opinion in 
the secular press are constantly revealing this attitude; 
and the most cogent and eloquent proof of this is to be 
found in the large and growing Evangelical Churches 
that are being rapidly formed in the bosom of Brazilian 
society. 

Brazil needs a great force or influence for her regen- 
eration. Romanism cannot supply that needed force for 
moral regeneration ; nay, Rome is powerless to reform 
herself. The land calls for the influence of Evangelical 
•Christianity to make it commercially, politically and mor- 
ally great. The people of the land call for the influence 
of Evangelical Christianity to teach them the true doc- 
trines of the gospel; to lead them unto Him who is the 
Way, the Truth, and the Life ; to guide them to rest and 
blessedness in the Father's house. The remaining chap- 
ters of this book will tell what has been done, what is 
being done, and what should yet be done toward answer- 
ing this call from the land and from the people of Brazil. 



io6 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE EVANGELICAL INVASION OF BRAZIL: THE FORCES IN 

ACTION. 

To tell the story of the Evangelical Faith in Brazil, 
one must begin long before the rise of the modern Foreign 
Missionary Movement. The first effort to win this fair 
land for Christ had its origin in sunny France, and the 
movement was born, in part, of persecution. 

Nicholas Durand de Villegagnon had sailed the South 
Atlantic, knew the coast of South America, and was con- 
vinced that a great future was in store for this land under 
the Southern Cross. Political and commercial considera- 
tions entered into the enterprise : he longed to take and 
hold the land for France ; but among the weightiest con- 
siderations in the founding and peopling of the colony 
known as Antartic France, was that suggested by Ville- 
gagnon to Coligny, — namely, the founding of an asylum 
in the western world for the persecuted Huguenots of 
France. Coligny, the great Huguenot admiral, was the 
friend and trusted counsellor of King Henry II. ; he took 
to the idea, and readily secured from the monarch the 
vessels needed for the expedition. Sailing from Havre 
in 1555, the colonists landed on an island in the bay of 
Rio, in November of the same year. A year or two later, 
a second expedition under Villegagnon's nephew, Bois-le- 
Comte, comprising three hundred French Calvinists, 
reinforced the colony. With this second expedition came 
two or more ministers, and a group of theological stu- 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 107 

dents fresh from Geneva. What an interesting picture, 
to think of Calvin and Coligny planning together to found 
a centre of Evangelical influence in the new world ! 

This colonial venture that promised so much for 
France, for South America, and for the Protestant cause, 
came to naught, principally because of the treachery of 
Villegagnon. He betrayed the Evangelical cause, perse- 
cuted the Huguenots, compelling some of them to return 
to France and forcing others to flee from the colony and 
seek refuge among the Indians. His treachery earned for 
him the title of "the Cain of America." Later on, Ville- 
gagnon himself abandoned the colony, and later still, the 
Portuguese forces drove the French from the island and 
from the neighboring coasts. Thus the enterprise of 
Antarctic France came to an inglorious end. When one 
remembers what the influence of Calvinism has been in 
fostering religious and civil freedom among men ; when 
it is remembered how these French Huguenots, after the 
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, enriched the 
blood and brain and increased the wealth of England, 
Holland, and Germany; when it is remembered what a 
precious heritage they brought to North America, and 
how they enriched the character of the American people ; 
when all this is recalled, one cannot check fancy as it 
pictures what French influence might have been in the 
Western Hemisphere ; what Brazil might have become 
under the influence of that wonderful people — the Hugue- 
nots — and what the influence of the Evangelical Faith 
might have been on South America, and, by reaction, on 
France itself, had Villegagnon remained true to his prin- 
ciples, and had the French kings strengthened their hold 
on Brazil by strengthening the Huguenots in Antartic 
France. Southey, the English historian of Brazilj truly 



io8 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

and wisely says: "Never was a war in which so little 
exertion had been made, and so little force employed on 
either side, attended by consequences so important." The 
Portuguese defeated the French; the Huguenots were 
driven out ; and Brazil was in the hands of Rome. 

II. French Calvinists had not taken Brazil: the next 
invasion was by the Calvinists of Holland. The Dutch 
colony in North Brazil was not primarily a religious en- 
terprise; neither was the religious motive wholly lacking, 
in profession, at any rate. The Dutch West India Com- 
pany mentioned as one of its motives for invading Brazil 
with its colonists, that thus "a pure religion might be 
introduced into America." This religious element in 
the enterprise was not entirely neglected in fact. There 
were some missionaries who labored among the negroes 
and especially among the Indians with true apostolic zeal, 
teaching the barbarous peoples the true doctrines of the 
gospel, and instructing them also in the industrial and 
agricultural arts. They learned "Guarany," the language 
of the Indians, and prepared catechetical books for the 
instruction of the savages whom they sought to civilize 
and Christianize. As stated in a previous chapter, under 
the wise and sitatesman-like leadership of Maurice of 
Nassau, the author of the famous decree of religious 
liberty, the colony flourished; and it appeared, at one 
time, that all Brazil would come under the influence of 
the Dutch. Had this advantage been pressed, the fate 
of the battles of the "Guararapes" would have been other, 
and there might have been in South America, as in North 
America, a great Protestant power, having in its blood 
the iron of the Pauline Calvinistic doctrines, along with 
the thrift, thoroughness, and tenacity of purpose that 
have always characterized the Dutch people. It may be 



' The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 109 

that the rocks and fogs and barrenness of Holland were 
better suited to develop what was best in this sturdy Teu- 
ton stock, but one cannot help wishing that it might have 
had a chance to show what it would have been, under the 
more genial tropical skies of Brazil, as well as in gray 
little Holland. 

But history was not to be written so. Political inter- 
ests turned Holland's attention elsewhere; Maurice of 
Nassau, seeing that his policies could not be carried out, 
withdrew; and the hope of the Dutch colony and of 
Evangelical Religion went with him. The Dutch influ- 
ence waned, the battles of the ''Guararapes" went against 
the Dutch, and soon they withdrew from Brazil. Thus 
was the land left to the undisputed sway of papal Rome 
for two centuries. 

HI. In our history of the Evangelical Invasion of 
Brazil, we come now to the period of Modern Missions. 
During these two long centuries of papal rule in Brazil 
the Church of Christ had heard her Lord's voice, and 
had gotten a vision of her high calling ; she was beginning 
to march forth to the conquest of the world for her 
Master. 

I. The first attempt to found Evangelical Missions 
in Brazil in this modern era was only a tentative one. 
It came, not as the first two, from the Calvinists, but 
from the disciples of Wesley. In 1835, as a result of a 
visit of investigation and inquiry made by the Rev. Foun- 
tain E. Pitts, the Methodist Episcopal Church sent to 
Brazil the Rev. Mr. Spaulding, who was joined the fol- 
lowing year by the Rev. D. P. Kidder. The author of 
''Latin America" quotes "The Brazilian Bulletin" as say- 
ing that Mr. Kidder returned to the States in 1840; but 
the Rev. H. C. Tucker, in "Protestant Missions in South 



no The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

America," gives the date of Mr. Kidder's return as 1842. 
They are agreed in saying the work was abandoned in 
1S42. It appears that Mr. Spaulding preceded Mr. Kid- 
der in his return to North America. 

The work done by Mr. Kidder was principally one 
of Bible distribution. In the interesting book, ''Brazil and 
the Brazilians," among other valuable things, one will 
find interesting accounts of Mr. Kidder's experiences in 
scattering the Word. At times the mission house was 
thronged with persons who had come to get the precious 
treasure. Old men and women mingled with the chil- 
dren; the rich and the poor, the high and the low, the 
wise and the ignorant, jostled each other in their efforts 
to secure the Word of life; and the priest and the min- 
ister of state were seen or represented in the throng. 
Such a state of things could not long go unchallenged, 
and soon Mr. Kidder and his work were attacked by the 
hierarchy, who saw their craft in danger. Mr. Kidder's 
withdrawal from Brazil put an end to this effort, and 
fifteen years passed before another was made. 

2. The first permanent missionary work opened in 
Brazil, the first among those agencies that are to be 
counted among the forces in action at the present time, 
came, as has been the case with so many good and lasting 
influences, from Scotland. This work was opened by 
Dr. Robert Reid Kalley, a Scotch physician ; and few 
members of his profession have shown so much of the 
spirit of the Great Physician who came that men might 
have life and health and have them more abundantly, 
as did Dr. Kalley. 

His first missionary enterprise was on the Island of 
Madeira, where he began a notable work, and gathered 
quite a congregation. When severe persecution arose and 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil hi 

his flock had been scattered, Dr. Kalley himself moved 
to Brazil. He found in Rio a number of his old par- 
ishioners of Medeira, and the spirit of the Master stirred 
him to effort again. The generous reception accorded 
him, and the liberal spirit so characteristic of the Bra- 
zilian government and of the people generally, made it 
easy to open mission work in the beautiful capital. Dr. 
Kalley's coming to Brazil in 1855 marks the beginning 
of persistent and continuous effort to win the land. 
From that time to the present, the work has increased 
slowly, steadily, surely — ^in volume, force, and intensity. 

Dr. Kalley was a Presbyterian in doctrine, but he 
gave to the church that grew up as the result of his 
labors, a congregational form of government. He mas- 
tered the Portuguese tongue as few foreigners have 
done. Both he and Mrs. Kalley possessed poetic talent 
of no mean order, and the hymns composed by them and 
set to music by Mrs. Kalley continue to be the most popu- 
lar and the most widely-used hymns of the Brazilian 
church. Dr. Kalley continued his splendid work for 
twenty-one years. In 1876, the infirmities of advancing 
age caused him to return to Edinburgh, where he fell 
asleep twelve years later. After his death, a voluntary 
and undenominational Missionary Society, known as 
"Help for Brazil," was organized, and continues to the 
present to sustain several valuable workers in the field. 
The work they have done is not wide in extent, but is 
of high quality; a small but goodly company they are. 
Dr. Kalley was a man of means, and all the work he did 
was done at his own charges. 

3. The next detachment of the Evangelical army to 
land on Brazilian shores came from the United States, 
and was Presbyterian. It was in 1859, before the ques- 



112 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

tions incident to the Civil War had divided the Presby- 
terian family, that the Rev. A. G. Simonton landed in 
Rio, in the month of August. Few important movements 
have had more capable or worthy leaders than had the 
Presbyterian Missionary work in Brazil. Mr. Simonton 
is spoken of by those who knew him personally as a man 
of rare gifts, both of heart and mind; of attractive per- 
sonality, of unusual intellectual endowment, an<i of deep 
spirituaHty withal. In 1861, a regular preaching hall 
was opened, and in the following year, a Presbyterian 
church was organized. Within a few years, the force 
was increased by the arrival of the Rev. A. L. Blackford 
and the Rev. G. W. Chamberlain. In 1865, these mis- 
sionaries were organized into the Presbytery of Rio de 
Janeiro, a Constitutional Ecclesiastical Republic in the 
heart of the Brazilian Empire. The propaganda spread 
rapidly, and soon Sao Paulo rather than Rio had become 
the centre of the Evangelical movement. 

4. Ten years after Mr. Simonton's arrival, when war 
had divided the Presbyterians of the States, the Southern 
Presbyterian Church also began to labor in Brazil. Of 
the two men who landed in 1869, one, the Rev. Edward 
Lane, lived and labored for many years, and was one of 
the best known and best loved of the men who have 
given their lives to the cause. These representatives of 
the Southern Presbyterian Church established the centre 
of their missionary operations at Campinas, a prosperous 
city of the state of Sao Paulo. From their centres in the 
south central section of the country, both of these bands 
of Presbyterians extended their lines of missionary work 
into distant parts of the field. Dr. Blackford, of the 
Northern Presbyterian Mission, established himself and 
opened mission work in Bahia, the second city in popu- 




Rev. a. G. SIMONTON, 
Pioneer Presbyterian Missionary in Brazil. 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 113 

lation, and the old capital of the country. The Rev. J. 
Rockwell Smith began an important work in Pernambuco, 
the most important of the northern provinces of the 
Empire, as Sao Paulo was the most progressive of the 
southern. Dr. Smith is the only one of the earlier group 
of pioneers who still remains, and whose bow still abides 
in strength. 

To follow these missionary forces as they spread 
rapidly along the semicircle of the northern coast-line; 
to follow them as they push their advance lines to the 
extreme south of the land ; to follow them, again, as with 
true pioneer spirit and zeal, they push their way into 
the very heart of central Brazil, where corner the three 
great watersheds of the continent; to follow them in all 
of these great advance movements of vast spiritual im- 
port, is to tell a thrilling and a fascinating story. But the 
story can be told here only in the most meagre outline. 

5. The Presbyterians had laid hold of the strategic 
points of the field, and had marked out the great lines of 
advance, when the next detachment of the invading 
forces arrived. These came from the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church South — zealous and militant on foreign shores 
as well as on the native heath. It was in February, 1876, 
seventeen years after the opening of work by the Pres- 
byterians, that the Rev. J. J. Ransom arrived in Rio and 
set up again the Methodist banner thalt had been with- 
drawn more than thirty years before. A few months 
after his arrival, Mr. Ransom opened work in Rio ; but 
soon thereafter, the centre of the operations was changed 
to the state of Sao Paulo. The Methodist mission was 
soon reinforced, and the work was pushed vigorously, 
both in Rio and Sao Paulo. Some ten years after the 
opening of their work, the Methodists occupied a new 



114 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 



I 



field, a step that may be considered one of the most im- 
portant advances in the mission work in Brazil. Up 
to this time, the great state of Minas Geraes, the most 
populous of all the states, and one of the most wealthy 
and conservative, had been touched by the mission forces 
only on its extreme borders. But now the Methodists 
occupy Juiz de Fora and other points on the main line 
of railroad that passes through the very heart of the 
great pastoral, agricultural and mineral section of this 
empire state. This field has become the most important 
and most prosperous of all the fields occupied by the 
Methodists in Brazil. 

6. Five years after the Methodists, in 1881, came the 
Southern Baptists, and another division of the invading 
army was on the field. The first representatives of the 
Southern Baptist Church were the Rev. and Mrs. W. B. 
Bagby. They began work in the state of Sao Paulo, but 
soon changed their centre of operations to Rio de Janeiro. 
When reinforcements came, work was opened in Bahia, 
and later was reopened in the state of Sao Paulo. The 
strongest centre of the Baptist work is in and about the 
city of Rio de Janeiro, though they have several large 
congregations in the state of Rio. From Rio, their work 
has also spread to the north, and they have congregations 
in many of the coast cities. 

The most important move of the Baptists, however, 
would seem to> be their going into the Amazon Valley. 
There is a great field for missionary work there, and it 
has been the only large and increasingly populous terri- 
tory unoccupied. The vast network of navigable rivers 
opens up waterways throughout the entire valley, and 
unquestionably the present century will, before its close, 
see a wonderful increase of population in that great 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 115 

region. It is well to recall just here Agassiz's prediction 
as to the Amazon Valley's being in the future the centre 
of the world's civilization. The moisture-laden tropical 
climate is not salubrious now, but the conquests of science 
are rapidly destroying all the enemies to man's health 
that lurk in the malarious lands of the earth, and that vast 
territory in the valley of the mighty Amazon will one 
day laugh with harvests and with habitations of health 
and prosperity. . The Baptists have shown great wisdom 
and foresight in planting stations in that region. The 
Baptists and the Presbyterians are the only forces at work 
in the Amazon Valley. 

7. Of the great Mission Boards carrying on mission 
work in Brazil, the last to enter the field was the Protes- 
ant Episcopal Church of North America. In 1889, two 
young men, just from the Episcopal Seminary at Alex- 
andria, Virginia, the Rev. L. L. Kinsolving and the Rev. 
W. Morris, came to Brazil as the pioneers of the mission- 
ary work of their church. Some months were spent in 
the study of the language and in looking over the field 
with a view to selecting a territory for their labors ; 
they wished to enter unoccupied regions, that they might 
not build on another man's foundation. Just at that time 
the mission of the Northern Presbyterian Church was 
unable to man Its work in Rio Grande do Sul, the extreme 
southern state of the Republic, and it was agreed that 
the Presbyterians would turn over the beginnings of their 
work in Rio Grande to the Episcopalians, who, in view 
of this, decided to establish themselves in that important 
and rapidly developing state. In this arrangement, we 
have a very practical Illustration of mission comity and of 
the essential oneness in spirit of the Protestant churches, 
a manifestation of a spirit that might. In many other 



ii6 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

fields, be imitated greatly to the advancement of the 
higher interests of the work. 

This latest addition to the forces of the Evangelical 
hosts has, during these twenty years, developed a large 
activity. The Episcopal work has been confined to Rio 
Grande do Sul until quite recently, when a mission sta- 
tion was opened also in Rio de Janeiro. 

8. There are several smaller and independent mis- 
sionary enterprises that are being conducted in Brazil, 
some of them doing very excellent work. Chief among 
them should be placed the South American Evangelical 
Mission. This movement was born of prayer in the 
city of Toronto, in 1895, and four years later, the head- 
quarters were moved to Liverpool. The first years were 
spent largely in investigating conditions in South America 
with a view to selecting centres. At first the work done 
was of intermittent character. From 1898 to 1902, some 
work was done among the Indians in the Tocantins val- 
ley, in Goyaz. The workers there was Mr. Witte and 
Dr. and ]\Irs. Graham, but the enterprise had to be 
abandoned. The work of this Society in Brazil took more 
definite and organized shape when Mr. B. W. Ranken 
arrived in 1905, opened work in Sao Paulo, and began 
to act as the bond of union between the widely scattered 
workers on the field, and as the medium of communication 
between the workers and the home Society. 

The centre of this mission's operations may be said 
to be Sao Paulo, and from there, workers have been 
sent into the states of Sao Paulo and ]\Iinas, into the 
centre of Goyaz and even into distant Matto Grosso. 
Many of these laborers have shown remarkable zeal in 
prosecuting their work. Some of them are self-support- 
ing, working part of their time to earn their living, and 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 117 

giving the rest of it to the mission service. They do not 
undertake to organize churches of a new denomination, 
but labor in connection with other churches. If their con- 
gregations are in territory occupied by Presbyterians, or 
nearer to the Presbyterians, the affiUate with the Pres- 
byterians. If nearer to some other Evangelical com- 
munion, the congregations go to that organization. 

Another independent and self-supporting work, car- 
ried on for a number of years under great difficulties and 
with great devotion, is the work of the Rev. Justus H. 
Nelson, of the Northern Methodist Church. His labors 
have been confined largely to the city of Para, at the 
mouth of the Amazon; and had Mr. Nelson been sup- 
ported by some Mission Board, a vast work might have 
grown up from that centre. Mr. and Mrs. Nelson en- 
dured hardship as good soldiers of Christ Jesus, and de- 
serve warmest praise for their earnest efforts in behalf 
of Brazil's redemption. At one time Mr. Nelson was 
imprisoned for several months on an unjust charge, based 
on certain articles assailing Romanism that he had pub- 
lished in his weekly paper. 

9. Among the interdenominational forces at work in 
the great Evangelical campaign in Brazil, a prominent 
place must be given to the Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciation. The work was undertaken nineteen years ago. 
Mr. Myron A. Clark was the first representative of the 
American Association. After carefully studying con- 
ditions in Brazil, he decided to begin his important work 
in the nation's capital, and as a result of that decision, 
there is a flourishing Association in Rio, occupying a 
handsome building in the business centre of the city, a 
building that has been entirely paid for. The Associa- 
tion's work was well received from the first. The Evan- 



ii8 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

gelical workers, both foreign and native, welcomed it as 
a valuable addition to their forces ; and the business men, 
foreign and native, were interested in its prosperity. 
Men prominent in the nation's social and political life 
have given clear evidence of their appreciation of the 
aims and methods of the movement. Associations have 
been organized in other larger cities, as Sao Paulo, and 
in several large coast towns tentative beginnings have 
been made. The interest in this work reached high-tide 
several years ago, when the National Convention met 
in Sao Paulo, and had the rare privilege of a visit from 
Mr. John R. Mott. The Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion doubtless has a great mission in Brazil. 

lo. In this rapid review of the forces in action in 
Brazil, very honorable mention must be made of those 
most valuable auxiliaries to Evangelical missions the 
world over, namely, the Bible Societies. These mighty 
agencies in the world's evangelization are doing a work, 
without which the efficiency of the missionary organiza- 
tions would be greatly reduced. Into hundreds of places 
where the ordained evangelist has never gone, these socie- 
ties send their godly colporteurs bearing the Word of 
life — the real pioneers of the Kingdom of God, the ad- 
vance guard of the Evangelical arm}^ in the peaceful con- 
quest of the world for Christ. When the missionary 
enters a new field, he often finds a man or a group of 
men reading God's Word, and learning for themselves 
the way of life. And when he finds such a man or group 
of men, he always feels that there is solid foundation 
for personal Christian character, and a firm centre around 
which to gather a Christian community. All honor to 
the Bible Societies and to their army of humble, godly 
colporteurs ! 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 119 

Long before the regular organized work of the Mis- 
sion Boards was begun in Brazil, the American and Brit- 
ish and Foreign Bible Societies were sending consign- 
ments of Bibles to business firms and to private indi- 
viduals who were willing to aid thus in the advancement 
of God's Kingdom. And when the first division of the 
invading host landed, these Societies were ready to place 
in the hands of the soldiers the arms of conquest — the 
sword of the Spirit. The American Bible Society did its 
first organized work in Brazil when the Rev. Mr. Kidder 
was in the country, 1835-1842. There has been a regular 
succession of these representatives ; and the present genial 
and active agent, the Rev. H. C. Tucker, has told in his 
book, "The Bible in Brazil," what his Society is doing. 
The British and Foreign Bible Society also established a 
Brazilian agency at an early day, and has been aggressive 
in its work. At present, the Rev. Frank Uttley is vig- 
orously pushing the work into every part of Brazil's 
vast territory. 

These Societies have placed millions of copies of the 
Word of life in the hands of the people; but this is not 
their only service. They have greatly aided the cause 
by providing improved texts of the Word. New editions 
of the old versions have been published, with marginal 
corrections of incorrect renderings ; and for several years 
past an able committee, representing the two Societies, 
has been at work on a new version. The work on the 
New Testament is about completed. 

Such, in rapid outline, is the history of the beginning 
of the conquest, and the review of the forces in action 
in the Brazilian field. The great campaign was wisely 
begun, and has been, in the main, wisely prosecuted. The 
entering wedge was driven in at the right place. The 



120 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

point of first and principal attack was wisely chosen. It 
was hardly a mere chance, or the conclusion of mere 
human wishes that brought the first missionaries to Rio 
and Sao Paulo. The guiding hand of Him who said: 
''Lo, I am with you alway" was leading his servants. 
Rio de Janeiro, the nation's capital, and Sao Paulo, whose 
people are rightly called "the Yankees of Brazil," where 
is found the centre of the commercial, agricultural, and 
industrial development of the country, were unquestion- 
ably the most suitable places for the beginnings of the 
work. In no other places would the people be so liber- 
ally inclined, so ready to hear the message ; from no other 
centres would the influence of success achieved be felt 
so promptly or so potently. The succeeding moves in 
the campaign were made with equal wisdom, and doubt- 
less with the same divine guidance. Bahia and Pernam- 
buco were pre-eminently the points to seize and to hold 
in the development of the work in the North; and the 
extension of the work into the South and into the interior 
were moves of great wisdom and of far-reaching results, 
Another piece of wise policy has characterized the 
missionary work in Brazil. In many instances, mission- 
ary workers seem inclined to confine their labors to the 
great cities, and to follow closely the coast, or thre lines 
of railroad. The example of the Apostle Paul is often 
cited as proof that such should be the method in mission 
work. It is stated with a tone of finality that the great 
apostle of the Gentiles always spent his energies in the 
great centres of population, making his voice heard in 
the commercial marts of the world. It has been perti- 
nently remarked in answer to this argument, that Paul 
doubtless spent his energies where he found the people 
most ready to hear and accept his message, and where 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 121 

he saw that the influence of his work would be greatest, 
and that modern missionaries would do well to follow 
his principle rather than copy his example. 

It has been noticed in Brazil that the largest congre- 
gations often grow up in the small interior villages, or 
in the country districts, where whole communities are 
some times brought under the influence of the gospel. 
From the very first, the missionaries in the state of Sao 
Paulo made long journeys into the interior sections of 
the state, and gave much time and energy to building 
up country congregations. A very notable instance of 
the policy now being considered was the move made by 
the Rev. John Boyle who left the railroad several hundred 
miles behind, and settled in the small town of Bagagen, 
a town commercially dead. His move was thought by 
many to be a mistake ; but from that insignificant country 
town, he made his influence felt, by means of missionary 
journeys and through the columns of his religious paper, 
The Evangelist, over an immense region of country. 
Large congregations grew up in the field, and remarkable 
permanent results would have followed, had not his 
career been cut short by his premature death, or had 
there been workers available to carry forward the work 
so well begun. He did not seek large centres of popu- 
lation; but thousands heard nim, and other thousands 
came under the influence and power of the gospel through 
his editorial labors. He did not copy Paul's example, 
he followed his principles. 

The Methodist missionaries exemplified this policy 
twenty years ago when they left the beaten paths near 
the coast and opened up a new field in the centre of the 
great state of Minas, a field that has become the most 
prosperous and fruitful of all their districts. The South- 



122 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

ern Presbyterians furnished another example fifteen years 
ago, when they left the old mission station at Campinas, 
and moved into the far interior, opening up an entirely 
new field, far from the great centres. Results are show- 
ing more and more clearly the wisdom of the change. 
The same tendency has been seen in North Brazil for 
some years. The missionaries have been leaving the 
great centres of population on the coast, and have been 
pressing the work in the rural districts of the interior; 
and the change of policy has brought the most blessed 
results. The great work in the interior of the state of 
Pernambuco is the fruit of this change of policy. A 
very remarkable instance of larger results following a 
change to this policy is to be seen in the great state of 
Bahia. For many years it was considered one of the 
most barren of the mission fields, but since the work began 
to be pressed with vigor in the interior, Bahia has be- 
come one of the promising and fruitful of the mission 
fields of Brazil. So striking are the facts here noted and 
others that might easily be added, that a very active mis- 
sionary worker is quoted as having expressed the con- 
viction, some few years ago, that Brazil would be evan- 
gelized, nor from the coast to the interior, but from the 
interior toward the coast. 

The history of the Evangelical movement in Brazil 
has been traced from the beginning; and there has been 
a rapid review of the forces now enlisted in winning the 
land for Christ. It has been seen that the two great 
Bible Societies are pioneering the land and opening the 
way for the mission forces ; and it has been seen, too, 
how the Young Men's Christian Association is helping 
to unify the work of the churches and to win the young 
men of the country. It has been seen that a number of 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 123 

smaller and independent agencies are at work, and five 
of the great Mission Boards of North America have been 
found enlisted in the vast enterprise. 



124 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE FRUITS OF VICTORY. 

''What hath God zvronght!" 

In August of this year (1909) it will be fifty years 
since the Rev. A. G. Simonton landed in Rio to begin 
missionary work under the direction of the Presbyterian 
Church; and in January of 1910, the General Assembly 
of the Presbyterian Church in Brazil will hold, in that 
same city, its first meeting, in celebration of the semi- 
centennial of Presbyterianism in the Land of the Southern 
Cross. Could Mr. Simonton and Dr. Kalley, the Scotch 
physician who preceded him by four years in beginning 
the mission work, return and attend this meeting of the 
General Assembly, what would not their impressions be? 
Great as have been the changes in the material and politi- 
cal conditions of the beautiful capital, the changes that 
have come about in religious conditions are greater still. 
Where fift}^ years ago, they gathered together a handful 
of hearers here and there in private houses, vast congre- 
gations, worshiping in splendid churches built of granite, 
would now greet them. Then, they, with a small group 
of Dr. Kalley's people from the Portuguese Islands, were 
practically the only representatives of Evangelical Chris- 
tianity in the broad Empire; now they would see minis- 
ters and elders gathering from every quarter, represent- 
ing congregations that worship God in almost every state 
of the great Republic. 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 125 

Whether due to excessive modesty on the part of the 
workers or to a lack of time to tell of the great work 
doing in Brazil, the missionaries themselves have never 
been quite able to decide; but whatever the reason, the 
fact remains that very little is known in Evangelical cir- 
cles of North America and Europe of the magnitude of 
the work of Protestant Missions in Brazil. In 1901, the 
field was visited by one of the secretaries representing 
the Southern Presbyterian Church ; and he expressed him- 
self as amazed at the extent, and at the degree of develop- 
ment of the work. In 1903, the distinguished chairman 
of the Northern Presbyterian Board of Foreign Mis- 
sions made a visit to the field, and his surprise knew no 
bounds. He had not dreamed that so large and so en- 
couraging a development of church life was to be found 
in Brazil. Secretary Robert E. Speer will visit us dur- 
ing the summer months of this year, and, notwithstanding 
his remarkably full and accurate information about all 
matters relating to Foreign Missions, his visit will doubt- 
less bring him many and great surprises. 

But in summing up the fruits of victory in the great 
Evangelical campaign in Brazil, let us go a little more 
into detail. 

The Presbyterians. In 1859, the Rev. Mr. Simon- 
ton came to Brazil, and two and a half years 1 later, 
in January, 1862, the first Presbyterian Church was 
organized; in 1863, Sao Paulo was occupied as 
a mission station, and in 1865, the missionaries 
then on the field organized themselves into a 
Presbytery. The coming of the Southern Presbyterian 
missionaries, in 1869, and the enlargement of their num- 
bers and their work resulted in the organization of a 
second Presbytery. Pernambuco was occupied in 1873, 



126 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

and from that centre, the work spread into the neighbor- 
ing states. Work was opened in Ceara in 1882, and 
shortly thereafter, Maranhao was occupied. These de- 
velopments in the North soon called for the organization 
of a third Presbytery. In 1888, with the consent of the 
two mother churches, the Presbyterian missionaries in 
Brazil, together with the native ministers they had or- 
dained, organized themselves into an independent 
ecclesiastical body, the Presbyterian Synod of Brazil. 
Since beginning its independent life, the Church in Brazil 
has gone forward with leaps and bounds. Two years 
ago, it was decided that, for greater convenience of ad- 
ministration, it would be advisable to divide the church 
into two Synods, and constitute a General Assembly. 
As already stated, the General Assembly will hold its 
first meeting in the city of Rio de Janeiro, in January, 
1910, to celebrate the semi-centennial of the birth of Pres- 
terianism in Brazil. 

The history of the Presbyterian Church proves that 
it believes in secession. Not wishing this sound Presby- 
terian principle to fall into desuetude, the young Church 
in Brazil has already had one division. In 1903, having 
failed to secure in the Synod the adoption of certain 
measures of organization and method, and more 
especially in view of having failed to secure the adoption 
of a resolution condemning Free Masonry as incompati- 
ble with the Christian life and profession, a group of min- 
isters and elders withdrew from the Synod, and organized 
the Independent Presbyterian Church in Brazil. The 
Synod refused to make any positive deliverance for or 
against Free Masonry and other secret societies, pre- 
ferring to leave the decision of the question to every 
man's conscience in the sight of God. Not a little bitter- 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 127 

ness and strife was engendered at first, but time has 
been healing the wounds ; and, as no great principle was 
involved in the cause of separation, it is to be supposed 
that, when time's healing ministry shall have been further 
performed, the breach will be closed, and the Presbyterian 
hosts will again march with united front to the conquest 
of the land for their Lord and King. It was sad to 
see division come ; and yet there was encouragement in 
the fact that men were willing to stand for what they 
felt to be a principle, and were ready to brave difficulties 
and to bear heart-aches for what they thought to be 
truth. 

Presbyterianism has greatly prospered in Brazil; it 
seems to find a congenial soil in the mind and heart of 
the Brazilian people. A glance at the accompanying mis- 
sionary map will show stations all the way from 
Amazonas and Para in the north, down through Pernam- 
buco, Bahia, Rio, and Sao Paulo, to Parana and Santa 
Catharina in the south. Leaving the coast for the interior, 
we find the Presbyterian banner planted in the great in- 
land states of Minas and Goyaz. In eighteen of the 
twenty states of Brazil, we find Presbyterian Mission 
work in a more or less fully organized form. 

The Synod of the Independent Presbyterian Church 
reports three Presbyteries, fourteen ordained ministers, 
sixty-one organized churches and about 5,000 communi- 
cants. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church 
in Brazil is composed of two Synods, seven Presbyteries, 
fifty ordained ministers, fifteen of them being mission- 
aries and thirty-five natives, ninety organized churches, 
with miore than a hundred congregations, and about 
10,000 communicants. Such, then, is the army that 
marches under the banner of blue. Spreading its divi- 



128 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

sions over almost all of Brazil, having established itself 
in the great centres of commercial, political, and educa- 
tional influence, commanding the respect of all and the 
admiration of many, with a communion roll between fif- 
teen and twenty thousand strong, and a ministry of edu- 
cated men of character, Presbyterianism is a vital and 
energizing influence in the national life. It already makes 
its influence felt and itself respected, and the intelligent 
observer will notice that this influence increases from 
year to year. 

The Methodists. The Methodist Conferences in 
Brazil form integral parts of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, South, of the United States, and their meetings 
are presided over, generally, by a member of the college 
of bishops of that church. It was in 1876, thirty-three 
years ago that the first representative of this church 
landed in Brazil and began work. Following in the 
tracks of the first Presbyterians, they opened up fields 
of operations in the states or Rio and Sao Paulo. Their 
first strong centre was Piracicaba ; and this town in the 
interior of the state of Sao Paulo continues to be one 
of the strongest centres of Methodist educational and 
evangelistic work. It is the largest congregation in the 
Brazilian Methodist Church. Years afterwards, the 
Methodist missionaries found a very attractive and fruit- 
ful field of work in the great cofifee zone in the north- 
western part of the state of Sao Paulo. But the most 
important of their districts is that which has Juiz de 
Fora for its centre. This work was a branch of the Rio 
work, and was begun ten years after Rio and Sao Paulo 
had been occupied ; yet it has become their strongest 
district, having almost fifty per cent, more communicants 
than any other district of the two conferences. 




Rev. J. W. TARBOUX. D. D.. 

Missionary of the Metliodist Ei)iseop;(l Cluircli. 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 129 

The Methodists are looked upon as the great pioneers, 
yet in Brazil they have concentrated their work more 
than the Presbyterians have. Their original centres were 
confined to the three principal states of the central sec- 
tion of Brazil — Rio, Sao Paulo, and Minas, while the 
Presbyterians have established work in eighteen states. 
Some years ago the Northern Methodist Church, from 
its centres in the La Plata region, reached out into the 
neighboring republic, and started mission work in Rio 
Grande do Sul, the extreme southern state of Brazil. The 
language of the people, however, was Portuguese and not 
Spanish, and their natural affiliations were with Brazil 
lather than with the Argentine. In view of these facts, 
some ten years ago, the Northern Methodists of the La 
Plata republics decided that they would turn over to the 
Southern Methodists of Brazil the work they had begun 
on Brazilian soil; and so it came about that the Metho- 
dists have an entirely new work in an entirely different 
field from those at first occupied by their forces. Here 
we have another instance of that beautiful Christian 
comity in mission work that speaks so eloquently and 
conclusively of the reality of the spiritual oneness of 
Evangelical Christendom. As the work in Rio Grande 
w^as so far removed from the Methodist work further 
north, it was decided that an independent conference 
should be organized. 

These two conferences together have six districts, 
with a communicant membership of some 6,000. They 
count on their rolls thirty-eight ordained ministers, and 
eight local or unordained preachers. Of these, forty-six 
preachers, fifteen are missionaries and thirty-one natives. 
There are also in the mission force, about nineteen un- 
married women, working under the Woman's Board, 



130 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

and engaged in educational work ; and besides these, there 
are also fifteen married women, wives of missionaries. 
The Methodist forces, then, number about fifty mis- 
sionaries, or about eighty workers, counting both natives 
and missionaries. 

The Baptists^ too, have added their liberal share to 
the trophies of Evangelical victory. The landing of Rev. 
and Mrs. W. B. Bagby in 1881, was the beginning of 
the Southern Baptist work; and these workers were 
joined the following year by Rev. and Mrs. Z. C. Taylor. 
In 1882, the two families moved to Bahia, and there, in 
October of the same year, the first Baptist Church was 
organized in Brazil. It was organized with five mem- 
bers, the four missionaries and a converted priest, Snr. 
Teixeira. The following year, Mr. and Mrs. Bagby 
moved to Rio, and a small congregation was there or- 
ganized. During the twenty-eight years of their history 
in Brazil, the Baptists have done a very aggressive work, 
and are now found in a number of states of the republic. 
They have followed more closely the plan adopted by the 
Presbyterians, that of scattering their workers. Refer- 
ence to the map will show the lines of green from the 
upper Amazon tributaries, down the course of the great 
river to Para, thence down the coast to Rio and Sao 
Paulo. 

Their strongest centres of activity are in Rio, Bahia, 
and Pernambuco. The most important enlargement of 
their work, doubtless, is the occupation of the Amazon 
Valley, and the strengthening of their forces there. This 
great river basin is developing more rapidly, perhaps, 
than any other section of Brazil; and is surely destined to 
play an important part in Brazil's history and in the 
history of the world, even though Mr. Agassiz's predic- 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 131 

tion as to the centre of the world's civiUzation should 
not be fulfilled. A vast population will fill that valley 
when modern medical science has fully succeeded in 
preventing or curing the maladies peculiar to malarious 
lands. For years, this was the part of Brazil most neg- 
lected; and the Baptists showed great wisdorn and fore- 
sight when they entered the needy field. 

In June, 1907, the Baptist hosts organized themselves 
into an independent ecclesiastical body, the Brazilian 
Baptist Convention. This Evangelical body has or- 
ganized work in fifteen of Brazil's twenty states; and 
they hope very soon to incorporate into their organiza- 
tion several Russian and German Baptist congregations 
in the southern states of Rio Grande and Santa Catharina, 
with a total membership of some seven hundred com- 
municants. Something like 150 churches and congrega- 
tions are represented in the Baptist Convention, with a 
membership of about 6,000. In 1908, 1,229 baptisms 
were reported. They have in their missions thirty-seven 
missionaries, eighteen men, eighteen married women, and 
one unmarried woman. There are twenty-five ordained 
native Baptist preachers, a number of unordained evange- 
lists, and fifteen candidates for the ministry. This youthful 
member of the great Baptist family of churches has de- 
veloped a notable and commendable missionary zeal. In 
1908, the Rev. Dr. W. B. Bagby was sent tO' Chile, where, 
after a sojourn of two months, he organized into con- 
gregations about 500 Baptists, leaving them under the 
care of a Scotch minister and a native pastor. Later 
in the same year, the Rev. Z. C. Taylor was sent to 
Portugal, where he spent a few weeks in active evange- 
listic work, and where he organized a church in the city 
of O Porto. A native evangelist is maintained also in 
the territory of Acre, near the Bolivian border. 



132 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

The Episcopalians. The story of the coming of the 
Rev. Messrs. Morris and Kinsolving to Brazil in the 
summer of 1889, of their temporary stay in the state 
of Sao Paulo, and of their final decision to establish 
their centre of missionary operations in the extreme 
southern state of Rio Grande, where the beginnings of 
the Northern Presbyterian mission work were turned 
over to them, has already been told. They are now con- 
cluding the second decennial of their missionary labors, 
and during these twenty years, they have given an ex- 
cellent account of themselves. The Episcopalians were 
fortunate in the men they first sent to represent them. 
Messrs. Kinsolving and Morris laid the plans of their 
work along conservative lines, but broad and catholic 
in spirit. The men who have since joined the mission 
force have maintained the high standards, and a work 
of great promise has been begun. They have aimed at 
high quality in their work rather than at large visible 
results. 

The Mission has developed its own complete equip- 
ment of evangelistic pastoral, publication, and educational 
work. Some years ago, the Rev. L. L. Kinsolving, one 
of the first representatives of his church, was consecrated 
bishop, and has his Episcopal residence in Rio Grande. 
Until quite recently, the Episcopalians had confined their 
work exclusively to Rio Grande do Sul ; but some months 
ago, one or two chapels were opened in Rio de Janeiro. 

The writer very much regrets that the requested in- 
formation regarding the work of the Episcopal Church 
has not been received in time to be published in this 
chapter. It is hoped that full statistical data may yet 
be given in an appendix at the end of the volume. Statis- 
tics, more or less recent, gave them 900 communicants. 




Rev. LUCIEN LEE KINSOLVING, D. D., 
Bishop of Southern Brazil. 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 133 

The Congregationalists. The church that grew 
out of Dr. Kalley's work in Rio, and that has been 
greatly strengthened by the aid received from the inter- 
denominational society in Scotland known as ''Help for 
Brazil," has confined its labors largely to the city of 
Rio de Janeiro and vicinity. The original congregation 
in Rio, has for many years been under a native pastor, 
and has not only been independent financially, but has 
greatly aided in the evangelization of certain districts of 
the state of Rio. In early years a strong congregations was 
also built up In the city of Pernambuco. Five attractive 
church organizations are the result of the influences start- 
ed by that noble Scotchman, Dr. Robert Reid Kalley. 
These Congregationalists have done a work not great in its 
extent ; but the quality of it has always been very high. 
Both in doctrine and in practice, they stand for what is 
best in Evangelical life and principles. Within recent 
years, through a kind of Central Committee of Evangeli- 
zation, these devoted bands have been aiding an important 
Evangelical propaganda in Portugal. A small band, but 
they may always be depended on to be about the King's 
business. May their tribe Increase. 

The Evangelical Mission of South America, 
whose Brazilian headquarters are in Sao Paulo, as stated 
In a former chapter, has Its forces scattered. Most of 
them are In Sao Paulo and Goyaz, a few are In Minas, 
and one couple In the capital of Matto Grosso. They 
have plans for taking up work among the wild Indians 
of the far interior of Brazil ; and their stations in Goyaz 
and Matto Grosso seem to be connecting links, or half- 
way stations between the red man's country and the out- 
side world. 



134 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

This Mission reports fifteen missionaries and three 
native preachers ; nine organized churches, with 263 com- 
municants. One or two church buildings have been 
erected. Of their fifteen missionaries, four are self-sup- 
porting — that is they earn their living in some secular 
employment, and spend their spare time in the Master's 
work. An earnest and devoted band of Christian war- 
riors, they are doing their part toward the taking of 
the land for the King. 

Such are some of the visible, tangible results of the 
Evangelical campaign in Brazil. But many, and oft- 
times the most valuable assets cannot be tabulated; and 
the Evangelical Churches in Brazil are rich in these in- 
tangible assets. In the preceding chapter the fact was 
emphasized that the great aim of Foreign Missions is 
so to preach the gospel among the unevangelized nations 
of the world, and so to develop the spiritual life of the 
evangelized peoples that there may be built up in the 
heart of the nation a Native Church, sound in the faith, 
strong in devotion to Christ, aggressive in method — a 
church capable of self-support, self-government, and 
self -propagation — that may be entrusted with the sacred 
missions of evangelizing its native land. The greatest 
triumph of Evangelical Missions in Brazil, in the opin- 
ion of the writer of this book, is the extent to which the 
native churches have been brought to this point. One 
cannot attend a meeting of one of the stronger courts 
of the Presbyterian Church in Brazil, and the writer 
speaks of the courts of this church because he has had 
better opportunities for observing them — one cannot at- 
tend one of the meetings of these courts without being 
impressed with the fact that there is gathered a body of 
men who have a high purpose in life, who understand 
clearly what is needed for the accomplishment of that 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 135 

purpose, and who are bending the energies of their Hves 
to its accomplishment. They are men who, under the 
guidance of God's spirit, are capable, both mentally and 
morally, of carrying out the programme given by Christ 
to his Church. The fact here noted, has more than once 
been the subject of remarks by Bishop Hoss of the Metho- 
dist-Episcopal Church, South, on his annual visits to pre- 
side over the meetings of the Brazil Conferences. 

Statistical figures and abstract statements can never 
impress the mind as do concrete cases ; and it will doubt- 
less be interesting to the reader to have a brief descrip- 
tion of one of the native congregations of the Evangeli- 
cal Church of Brazil. The First Presbyterian Church 
of Rio will be selected, because it is one of the most ac- 
tive, interesting and flourishing congregations in Brazil, 
and shows what can be done in any other large town or 
city under favorable circumstances. This congregation 
is also chosen because the writer had occasion to refer 
to it some months ago when called upon to correct some 
statements made in regard to Protestant work in this 
Southern Republic, and especially in regard to conditions 
in Rio. A lady who had spent some years in Brazil re- 
turned to her native town in the States. Soon she was 
interviewed by friends interested in the mission work, 
and who thought the lady just back from Rio could give 
them first hand information. The interview was far from 
satisfactory. The lady had not been able to find any 
mission in Brazil ; and in Rio, she had found one congre- 
gation that seemed to be composed mostly of colored 
people, and into which church she declined to go. The 
mission work amounted to nothing, a few poor and ig- 
norant ones might be converted and brought into the 
mission congregations, but no one of the better families 



136 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

attended the services or cared anything for missionary 
work. This was, more or less, the impression made by 
the travellers report. The missionary workers were dis- 
tinctly disappointed, and a few days later, they questioned 
the writer on the subject. 

To correct the impression, and to show how little the 
traveller knew about the mission work, and how feeble 
her efforts to find Evangelical worship had been, an 
account was given of the First Presbyterian Church of 
Rio, where the lady in question had spent most of her 
time. This church stands within five hundred yards of 
the business centre of the beautiful capital, and is within 
a hundred yards of some of the main street-car lines. 
It is a handsome stone Riilding with a seating capacity of 
from eight hundred to a thousand. The pastor is a native 
Brazilian, a cultured gentleman well known and highly 
respected by many who belong to the best social and most 
cultured circles of Rio, and whose writings on historical 
subjects are gratefully received by the official organ of 
the Brazilian Historical Society. Had the sojourner in 
Rio attended this church at the morning service on a 
communion Sabbath, the day when all the members of 
the widely scattered congregation make special effort to 
be present, she would have found almost all of the five 
hundred communicants in their places, and the vast build- 
ing full of worshippers. If she understands Portuguese, 
she would have heard a most edifying sermon, and would 
have found the entire service highly spiritual and uplift- 
ing. In the large congregation, she would have seen all 
classes of society represented. The poor and humble 
would have been found, for now, as of old, the common 
people hear His message gladly. But the rich also would 
have been there. The head of the largest firm of builders 




Rev. ALVARO REIS, 

Pastor First Presbyterian Church, 

Jiio de Janeiro. 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 137 

and architects in Rio is a member of the church : he and 
his family would have been present. A gentleman, hold- 
ing a place of great responsibility in the most important 
railroad company of Brazil, a graduate of the Military 
Academy of Brazil and graduate, in engineering, of the 
correspondence school of one of our North American 
universities, is an elder in the church, and might have 
passed the bread and wine to our traveller. He, by the 
way, is a son of one of the first native ministers of 
Brazil. Another elder of the church is a prominent 
lawyer in the city of Rio, and in the congregation, com- 
municants of the church, the visitor would have seen men 
representing the learned and official classes — lawyers, 
physicians, also men belonging to the army and to the 
navy. 

All this our visitor would have seen in the very heart 
of the city of Rio, not a hundred yards from where stands 
the equestrian statue of Dom Pedro I. This church pays 
its very active and efficient pastor a salary of $2,250 a 
year, and employs an assistant pastor to help in the large 
work of city evangelization. It also furnishes the pastor 
a comfortable manse, just beside the church. Last year, 
the congregation contributed for all causes almost ten 
thousand dollars, and this is not much more than the 
offerings of preceding years. A picture of this First 
Presbyterian Church of Rio Is shown, also a picture of 
Its pastor, the Rev. Alvaro Rels. 

This full account Is given for several reasons : it will 
show, as statistics cannot do, what Is actually going on 
In Brazil to-day, as a result of Evangelical missions ; it 
will show, too, what can be accomplished In other cities 
and towns of Brazil toward building up strong self- 



138 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

supporting churches that will be powerful factors in the 
evangelization of the country; and finally, it will show 
the real value of much of the criticism and information 
heard from people who are supposed to have visited mis- 
sion lands. When travellers go abroad, they generally 
find what they look for. If they look for Christian work, 
in mission fields, they will find it ; if they look for theatres 
and races, as our traveller probably did, they will find 
them, in Rio, in great abundance. 

So far only the visible results have been referred to; 
but something must be said in regard to the results 
achieved in the way of institutional work. And first, 
about Publication. When the arms of our warfare were 
discussed, this branch of the work was mentioned, and its 
great value was shown; in another chapter, something 
will be said as to the desirability of combination ; here, 
however, let something be said of what the press is really 
accomplishing. Of making many church papers there is 
no end, in Brazil. It would surely be better if there were 
more intensive and less extensive work done along this 
line. All of the Evangelical Churches have their papers. 
O Puritano and Norte Evangelical represent the Pres- 
byterian Church in Brazil, and Estandarte speaks for 
the Independent Presbyterian; O Expositor Christao up- 
holds the Methodist cause, and the Jornal Baptista de- 
fends the ideas of our Baptist friends ; Estandarte 
Christao presents the ideas of the Episcopalians, while 
O Presbyterian furnishes expository and homiletic mat- 
ter for all, and looks after the interests of the Sunday- 
schools. Missoes Nacionaes promotes the interests of 
''Domestic Missions" of the Presbyterians. There are 
lesser lights whose name is "Legion," but they cannot 
be mentioned in detail. These different papers have un- 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 139 

doubtedly had a large influence on the work in Brazil, 
and they could not be spared, the larger ones, be it un- 
derstood. 

Aside from the publication of these papers, the mis- 
sion-presses have sent out millions of pages of Evange- 
lical and polemic literature in the form of tracts, with 
an occasional book. The Methodists have quite a large 
publication planit in Rio; and the Baptists have one 
valued at ten thousand dollars. The Presbyterians have 
made one or two efforts to establish a publishing house, 
but so far the efforts have come to naught. These en- 
terprises do valuable work, and there is great need of 
this kind of effort; but, as is said elsewhere in this vol- 
ume, it would be well if efforts could be united, and 
something really large could be undertaken. These great 
causes should be interdenominational. 

No account of the achievements of Evangelical Mis- 
sions in Brazil would be complete that did not give a 
prominent place to vv^hat has been done in the way of 
Educational Work. The value and the necessity of it 
was recognized by wise missionaries from the beginning. 
See Dr. A. L. Blackford's Sketch of Brazil Missions. 

In 1870, a Day School was opened in Sao Paulo under 
the care of the Northern Presbyterian Mission. In 1878, 
a boarding department for girls was added, and in 1885, 
one for boys. The growth of the institution was constant 
and rapid. In 1886 a course of academic and lower col- 
lege training was organized, and five years later, the 
college course was made complete and was incorporated 
under the Board of Regents of the University of New 
York. Being affiliated with that insitution, the diplomas 
are issued by the Board of Trustees of the University. 
Courses are offered leading to the degrees of bachelor of 



140 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

arts, bachelor of science, and civil engineering. During 
the period of its history of thirty-nine years, the tiny 
seedling of 1870 has waxed a great tree. 

The educational plant of the Northern Presbyterians 
at Sao Paulo, in its various departments, offers a com- 
plete course of instructions, under Protestant influences, 
from kindergarten to the bachelor's degree or that of 
civil engineer. During the twenty-two years in which 
the schools have been under the present management, 
more than eleven thousand boys and girls have attended 
their classes, and have been prepared for greater use- 
fulness in life. A number of the men who are doing 
valiant service in the pulpits of the Protestant Churches 
of Brazil received their academic training entirely, or in 
part. In this Sao Paulo School. Hundreds of young 
women who are now adoring Christian homes or teach- 
ing the children of Brazil In public or private schools 
were trained in Sao Paulo. Since the incorporation of 
the Protestant College, commonly called "Mackenzie 
College," under the Regents of the University of New 
York, forty-four young men have finished the full course 
of six years, and have received their diplomas. "All 
of them are profitably employed, some of them filling 
positions of Influence," so writes the president of the in- 
stitution. 

Several other schools of lower grade are affiliated 
with Mackenzie College. One or two of them are in- 
terior towns of Sao Paulo, and two others are under 
the care of missionaries in Curitlba and in Florlanopolls, 
the capitals of the states of Parana and Santa Catharina. 
The enrollment in Sao Paulo In 1908 was 695, In all de- 
partments; and If the pupils of the branch school are 
included, we probably have twelve hundred, or more, who 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 141 

were receiving instruction under Protestant influences. 
The power for good in tliese institutions is vast. 

In the interior of the state of Bahia plans are being 
perfected for the opening of an Industrial and Farm 
School, on the principles of self-help. This enterprise, 
if carried into effect, will have a great influence on the 
interior of that state, and will be a mighty factor in the 
religious history of that part of Brazil. Already, the 
Northern Presbyterian missionaries in that field have in 
operation forty-two local primary schools for the train- 
ing of the children of Protestant families, and that are 
also serving as centres of Evangelical influence in the 
communities. These schools are self-sustaining, or prac- 
tically so. This system of primary schools, under mis- 
sionary direction, is destined to have great influence on 
the interior region of Bahia, and probably in the in- 
terior regions of other states. 

The Southern Presbyterians also undertook educa- 
tional work when their mission was founded at Campinas. 
Misfortunes, death, and frequent changes in the man- 
agement of the institution, however, prevented the ful- 
filment of the bright promise of this work in the early 
years. Finally, when the mission force was moved from 
Campinas and opened new work at Lavras, the school at 
Campinas was closed. A school for girls was begun at 
Lavras, and a boarding department was added. A school 
for boys was opened in 1904, with day school and board- 
ing department. During these five years, the develop- 
ment of the work has been very rapid. Lavras is a small 
interior or town, so the local patronage is not large, most 
of the pupils coming from the surrounding country, and 
some of them from distant states of the Republic. A 
few years ago, on the initiative, and through the efforts 



142 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

of Brazilian friends and patrons, the Boys' School was 
granted official recognition by the Federal Government. 
This placed the school on the same footing as the official 
Gymnasium of Government, having all the rights and 
privileges of that institution, its examinations being valid 
for entrance into the professional schools under govern- 
ment control. A year ago an agricultural department was 
added to this educational plant, and before this, a com- 
mercial course had already been organized. The general 
name under which all of the schools are embraced is 
''The Evangelical Institute": the school for girls is the 
''Charlotte Kemper Seminary" ; the classical school for 
boys, offering the diploma of bachelor of arts, is the 
''Gymnasio de Lavras," "gymnasio" being the term used 
in Brazil for a school of college grade, following more 
or less the Continental system ; and the school of agricul- 
ture is called the "Escola Agricola de Lavras." During 
the year just closed, about two hundred and forty pupils 
were enrolled, seventy-five of them being in the Char- 
lotte Kemper, the remaining hundred and sixty-five, in 
the Gymnasio and the Escola Agricola. 

As the writer is connected with this Lavras work, 
and as a persistent and systematic effort is being made 
here to carry out the ideas expressed elsev/ here on the 
subject of industrial and farm schools as the only 
solution of the educational problem of the Evangelical 
Churches in Brazil, he may be pardoned for going 
somewhat more fully into an account of the work than 
would other wise be expected. We have in the In- 
dustrial Department, cabinet, saddle and shoe shop, 
besides a small plant for printing and book-binding, and a 
blacksmith shop. A farm of three hundred and fifty acres 
has been purchased, and most of the supplies for the 



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td 

R r- 



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The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 143 

two boarding departments will come from our own fields. 
Cattle and hogs will be raised, a small dairy plant will 
be operated, and we plan to do our own butchering. 
Much of this work will be done by the students of the 
Agricultural School and by the boys who are working 
their way through college. 

The Agricultural School promises to be very popular, 
and the manual training element is attractive to the peo- 
ple. Like all people who have recently been slave- 
holders, the Brazilians or many of them at any rate, 
have an idea that manual labor is servile. This manual 
training and the practical work of the Agricultural School 
will go far toward dissipating such ideas. The father 
is delighted to visit the institution and find his boy at 
work with a plow, or using his hands in one of the 
manual training shops. When they come for their sons 
at the close of the year, and see a saddle or bridle, a 
pair of shoes, or a chair made by a boy they are more 
than delighted. These manual training shops and this 
farm solve the question of eleemosynary education. No 
boy is taken gratis. If he cannot pay full rates, he must 
work a certain number of hours per week. The boy who 
pays full rates is required to work at least one hour a day 
in the shops or on the farm, as a part of his education, 
and he pays for this just as for his geography or his 
arithmetic. This has a leveling influence, and the boy 
who can pay does not feel disposed to look down upon 
the boy who cannot. The industrial and agricultural 
features also solve the question of the education of can- 
didates for the ministry. A boy wishes to prepare himself 
to preach the gospel. If he cannot pay his way, he works 
for his education just as any other boy. By the time 
he has been working his way for three or four years, 



144 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

he knows whether or not he feels called to the ministry; 
and others have had opportunity of trying him. The 
effort in his own behalf has been an education to his 
character. The twelve boys who have been in the school 
as candidates have all worked their way, and they have 
won the highest regard of their fellow pupils and of the 
community. 

Given an efficient equipment, the school will be able 
to receive half of its boarding pupils at reduced rates, 
twenty-five percent, of them paying nothing but their 
number of hours of labor. 

It was stated in the preceding chapter that a school 
could maintain its decidedly Christian character and still 
command a large patronage, and the Lavras experiment 
is bearing out this contention. We do not insist on the 
pupils' studying the catechisms of the church, but we 
do insist on their studying the Bible. The catechism is 
sectarian, but all must admit that the Bible is the basis 
of the Christian faith, and that the man who calls him- 
self a Christian should know something about its teach- 
ings. A thorough course of study of nine years is or- 
ganized, or is in process of organization. It begins with 
the memorizing of hymns and Scripture texts, passes on 
to the study of Bible History from different points of 
view, and ends at the close of the bachelor's course with 
the study of Comparative Religion from the point of 
view of Christian Apologetics. The educated classes in 
Brazil are skeptics; the idea has gotten abroad that re- 
ligious belief is incompatible with wide learning. Chris- 
tian schools must correct this impression. The youth 
of Brazil must be brought to see that there is a reasonable 
basis for the Christian religion, and that a man may be 
an Augustine in piety as well as in intelligence. They 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 145 

must be convinced that a man may be as learned as 
Joseph ScaHger and as devout as Samuel Rutherford. 
Such, as the writer understands it, should be the scope 
and programme of the Christian school: such are the 
ideals of those engaged in the Lavras educational work. 

The Southern Presbyterians, for many years, neg- 
lected this educational arm of the work, and they have 
suffered the consequence of their error in lack of native 
preachers to man their fields. Within recent years they 
have recognized the mistake, and are beginning to cor- 
rect it. In the southern part of Brazil, they have the 
Lavras schools. In North Brazil, a prosperous school 
for girls was conducted for a number of years at Natal, 
in Rio Grande do Norte: it was transferred to Pernam- 
buco where it continues to do good work. At Garanhuns, 
in the interior of Pernambuco, a school has been opened 
for the preparation of young men for the work of the 
ministry. The necessity of preparatory work for these 
young fellows will doubtless give rise to what will be 
the beginning of a school for boys. 

The cap-stone of the educational structure, from the 
missionary point of view, at any rate, is, naturally, the 
theological seminary. The seminary of the Brazilian 
Presbyterian Church is at Campinas, where it owns and 
occupies the building formerly used for the school of 
the Southern Presbyterians. The three professors or the 
seminary represent the three component elements of 
Brazilian Presbyterlanism, the two Presbyterian bodies 
that began the mission work, and the vigorous young 
Native Church. This, in many respects, seems to be 
an ideal arrangement. This school of the prophets is, 
as it should be, under the care and direction of a Board 
of Directors elected by the church. The professors, too, 



146 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

are elected by the church. When Native churches have 
attained the degree of development they have reached 
in Brazil, to them, unquestionably, belongs the training 
of the native ministry. The mission bodies may help 
in the enterprise ; but the direction of the work should 
be in th hands of the Native Church. Sometimes, it 
becomes necessary, in the interests of sound doctrine, for 
the missionaries to train the native preachers for their 
work. Fortunately, we have no problems of orthodoxy 
to solve in Brazil. The soundness in the faith of our 
native ministry would delight the orthodox shades of 
our Hodges and Dabneys. 

The Methodists, though much weaker in numbers, 
and though they came much later to the field, are doing 
far more to promote education in Brazil than are the 
blue-stockings, the traditional friends of learning. The 
principal seat of their educational work is at Juiz de Fora, 
where a boys' school was founded in 1890. The late 
Bishop J. C. Granbery, then in charge of the mission of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church South, became deeply 
interested in this school, and in his honor it was called 
"The Granbery." The institution is widely known, not 
only in the state of Minas, but throughout the central 
section of Brazil. Last year, it had among its students 
representatives of six of the states of the Republic. In 
1905, this school was granted official recognition, and 
enjoys all the rights and privileges of the Gymnasio 
National, the official school of the Federal Government. 
Granbery has undertaken quite a large programme of 
professional training. Aside from the collegiate course 
leading to the bachelor's degree, it offers two profes- 
sional courses — one of Pharmacy, another of Dentistry. 
Both of these professional schools are officially recognized 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 147 

while the Bible societies scatter abroad the Word of Life. 
To this must be added again, fully sixty Evangelical 
schools with an attendance approaching 5,000. Of these 
sixty schools, three are of college grade and confer de- 
grees; twelve, or more, may be ranked with our Ameri- 
can high schools or small country academies ; and the 
rest of them may be considered primary schools. 

When we consider these visible results so large, and 
remember that they have been attained by forces so few 
and weak, against odds so great, it requires a bold skep- 
ticism not to see God's hand in the work. "It is not by 
might nor by power.'' 

But visible results are not the only results, and often, 
indeed, they are not the most Important results. When 
the day shall declare the work, hundreds and even thou- 
sands of redeemed ones will be found in the great throng, 
saved through the Influence of Evangelical Missions in 
Brazil, but whose names have never figured on the rolls 
of the congregation. One of the invisible results we have 
here. 

Again, very great importance needs to be given to 
the silent leavening process that has been going on all 
these years. This is something that cannot be weighed, 
measured and tabulated, but every worker who watches 
the drift of current knows that such work is going on, 
and that its momentum is powerful. The very existence 
of a large Protestant community in the heart of the na- 
tion, the potent influence of an open Bible more widely 
known year by year, the clear, constant voice of the 
Evangelical press, the mighty Influence of Evangelical 
schools on the mind and character of the young, all these 
agencies have set in motion mighty currents of influence 
that have, to a large extent, changed the attitude of the 



148 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

best elements of Brazilian society toward Evangelical 
religion and toward its missions. 

When we consider these fruits of victory; when we 
compare conditions now with the conditions that con- 
fronted Dr. Kalley and Mr. Simonton fifty years ago, we 
say, with bated breath, "Behold what God hath wrought !" 
If the first fifty years have accomplished so much, what 
may not the next fifty years accomplish? Brazil feels 
her need of the influences that can come only from the 
gospel of Christ : and through her hungry multitudes 
that need the Bread from heaven, through her multitudes 
that have feasted their souls on this heavenly manna and 
have been satisfied, she now sends forth her call for 
help. Let us, then, in the closing chapter of this book, 
give ear to Brazil's appeal. 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 149 



CHAPTER VIII. 

PAPAL brazil's appeal TO PROTESTANT AMERICA. 

The knowledge of great victories won in the past 
should only cheer the heart, and arouse a hope of 
greater victories yet to be won. Great things have 
been accomplished in Brazil in the half-century past; 
but far more remains to be accomplished in years to 
come. The gospel banner has been planted in every state 
of the Brazilian Republic, and some seventy-five thou- 
sand Evangelical Christians are gathered under the 
standards of our King. Yet the sad fact remains that 
perhaps three-fourths of the people have, as yet, no suffi- 
cient knowledge of the love of God in Christ Jesus. 
There are still sixteen millions of the people who. have 
not learned the way of life. 

It is necessary, therefore, that in the closing chapter 
of this book the question should be asked: What is 
needed to complete the unfinished campaign in Brazil in 
this generation? 

Reinforcements are Needed. To reach these millions 
yet unevangelized the work calls for a large increase in 
the number of missionary evangelists. For a long time 
in the future, as it has been in the past, evangelistic 
work must stand in the fore front as the supreme work 
of missions. The men who stand out in bold relief in 
the early years of the mission work in Brazil, the men 
whose names are household words — Simonton, Chamber- 
lain, Edward Lane, and John Boyle — were all men who 
have devoted the mighty energies of their lives, primarily, 



150 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

to evangelization. The call is still for such men to 
push forward such v/ork. For sufficient reasons a 
missionary may be left behind in territory that has 
been partly evangelized and turned over to the care 
of native pastors ; he may be needed, for instance, to help 
in some important institutional work — educational, medi- 
cal, or publication. But as a rule, the place of the mis- 
sionary is on the frontier; he is essentially a pioneer. 
When congregations are gathered and churches are or- 
ganized, they should, whenever it is possible, be placed 
under the care of native pastors. The missionary should 
then march again to the frontier, there to open up and 
develop new work to be again turned over to the native 
pastor. This is the success and the glory of the mis- 
sionary evangelist. 

But while emphasizing the need of reinforcements 
for the work in Brazil, it is well to emphasize the fact 
that care needs to be exercised in the. selection and 
preparation of the workers. Numbers are needed, but 
in Brazil, quality will count far more than numbers. 
The churches in the home land should send forth to 
the work in Brazil their choicest spirits. The mis- 
sionary is a pioneer, he makes the beginning of work 
that must be followed up through succeeding years; 
he should be a' man of intellectual power, a man who 
can plan work on broad, liberal lines that may be fol- 
lowed by his successors in years to come. The Bra- 
zilians being a very keen-witted people, and their 
educated classes composed of men thoroughly posted, 
who are following some one of the schools of modern 
skepticism, it can easily be understood that the mis- 
sionary, to do the best work among them, needs to be 
a man of parts. 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 151 

But not only do we need more missionaries — capa- 
ble, cultivated and consecrated — but, we need larger 
equipment, and first, a large advance should be 
made in the equipment for educational work. If the 
great work is to be done in Brazil by the natives, these 
workers must be trained for efficient service and this 
training cannot be given without educational institu- 
tions. Women need to be trained for the home, for 
the parochial school, and for work in the schools of 
higher grade. Men must be trained as efficient elders, 
deacons and laymen ; for the work in the professor's 
chair in college and seminary; to found and to foster 
educational institutions of the Brazilian churches ; and 
tO' preach the gospel to their fellow countrymen as 
pastors and evangelists. This program calls for large 
increase in educational facilities. The schools already 
founded should be enlarged and more thoroughly 
equipped ; and where there is one now, there should 
be four or five ten years hence. Only thus can the 
great work be accomplished. Not only should pro- 
vision be made for training large numbers ; the schools 
should be organized — many of them at any rate — 
on the principle of self-help. The poor boy or girl 
should not be turned away, if desirous of an education ; 
but the advantages of thorough college training should 
be placed within reach of any poor child of the church 
who is willing to put forth the exertion necessary to 
attain it. 

Under the larger inspiration of the Laymen's Move- 
ment, all the Evangelical churches are planning to do 
larger things for missions. May not large things be 
done for educational work in Brazil? Let schools be 
organized of primary and higher grade that will give 



152 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

instruction to the youth of the Brazilian churches ; let 
industrial training as well as literary be given; let 
there be normal courses for the training of teachers, 
literary degrees for those who desire them, and pro- 
fessional training for those who seek the learned pro- 
fessions. In harmony with these larger plans, may 
not a system of education be organized that will, 
within the next ten years, place within reach of the 
Brazilian youth all of the advantages of intellectual 
training from the kindergarten to the uniA^ersity degree 
or professional diploma, and always under the influ- 
ence of positive Evangelical Christianity? The influ- 
ence of high-class institutions of college or university 
grade as the recognized centres of Protestant thought 
and as the authorized exponents of Protestant prin- 
ciples as applied to the solution of social and political 
problems would be far-reaching indeed. We have, so 
far^ no such institutions in Brazil. There are institu- 
tions that could be brought up to this ideal : but the 
institution of national reputation, the recognized ex- 
ponent of Evangelical Christianity, the ''Princeton," 
or the "Vanderbilt," of Brazil, is still in the future, and 
is not even in sight. 

But educational work is not the only thing calling for 
enlarged equipment. A field of vast extent and great 
usefulness is calling for the development of the Publica- 
tion Work. There are several small enterprises con- 
trolled by the various missions, but nothing that at all 
measures up to the needs and opportunities of the work. 
Concerted action is needed. There have been from time 
to time plans proposed for the uniting of these publish- 
ing houses, but owing to personal or denominational in- 
terests or to narrow views of the great work, owing to 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 153 

these or to some other causes, these plans have never been 
reaHzed. When God's providence has placed at hand 
such powerful agencies, agencies so efficiently used by 
the enemies of truth and by the apostles of error, should 
not the Church of Christ be wiser in her generation, and 
make plans for the largest possible use of this mighty 
engine for the propagation of the truths of the blessed 
evangel? Then let the Missions on the field, or the con- 
trolling Boards at home unite in some plan that will give 
us a great publication work, organized on wise and hberal 
lines, that will give to Brazil the priceless benefits that 
would flow from the extensive use of the printed page. 
No outlay of money for equipment would bring larger 
results. 

More missionaries, larger equipment for educational 
work, means to support a larger and better publication 
work — these are the crying needs of the field. 

In supplying these needs where should Papal Brazil 
more naturally turn for help, than to Protestant America ? 

The late Dr. R. L. Dabney, one of America's great- 
est teachers of theology, is said to have given it as his 
opinion that a mistake was made in launching the 
modern movement of world-wide missions. His idea 
seems to have been that, in the first place, the inter- 
rupted work of the Reformation of the sixteenth cen- 
tury should have been resumed and completed; and 
that, after the reforming of papal lands, the great 
work of evangelizing the nations should have been 
undertaken. That is certainly a splendid conception. 
The vision of a reformed and reunited Christendom 
marching with solid front to the conquest of the 
heathen world for the Lord Jesus is, indeed, one to 
inspire and thrill the Christian heart. 



154 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

Whatever may be thought of Dr. Dabney's idea in 
itself, the time is novv^ past for its realization. The 
vast enterprise is too far advanced to think of radical 
changes in the plants of campaign. But even if it is 
too late for papal lands to be evangelized in the first 
place, surely it is not too late to urge that they be 
given an equal share in the thought and effort of 
Evangelical Christendom. We do not ask for the first 
or lion's share; we only plead that Brazil and other 
papal lands be not neglected in the church's plans for 
the v^orld's evangelization, as they have been forgotten 
in the past. When we consider the great needs of the 
field, the urgent calls that come from the field, the 
great results obtained in the field, and the vast pos- 
sibilities of the work, surely we must agree that a 
loud and urgent appeal goes forth from Brazil to the 
world. But while Brazil has a claim on the Protestant 
world, she has more especially a claim on Protestant 
America, and the principal object of this final chapter 
is to emphasize this special claim of Papal Brazil on 
Protestant America. 

The Commercial Bonds, actual and possible, empha- 
size Brazil's Claim on North America. Within recent 
years a remarkable change has come in the commer- 
cial relations between the two Americas. The lines of 
steamships plying between the two halves of the 
continent have multiplied, and the former lines have 
increased the number of steamers. A comparison of 
the consular reports during the last ten years would 
be interesting. The diplomatic visits and courtesies 
between the two countries, the Bureau of Republics, 
the Pan-American Congresses, — these things all indi- 
cate the trend of thought and the tendencies. The 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 155 

United States is Brazil's best customer, and it is 
natural that these commercial favors should be reci- 
procal. Brazil's superb agricultural possibilities will 
call more and more for farming machinery, and the 
United States stands first as manufacturer of these 
implements of agriculture. Already one may see in 
almost any part of Brazil that has felt the impulse of 
new life plows, cultivators and other implements with 
names and legends well known in the States ; and this 
is only the beginning. 

The Panama Canal will open to the trade of the 
United States the markets of the west coast of South 
America, and will faciUtate, perhaps, commercial rela- 
tions with some parts of Brazil. It was the late Hon. 
Jas. G. Blaine that first advocated seriously the con- 
struction of a railroad connecting the two Americas, 
and there are many who think it will not be many 
years before one will be able to take a sleeping-car 
in Rio de Janeiro for the cities of Mexico, St. Louis 
and Chicago. What a wonderful bond of union that 
would be, and how greatly it would tend tO' cement the 
friendship and strengthen the commercial relations of 
the two countries. But there is another and a far more 
valuable bond of union within th range of pos- 
sibilities. Let the reader study the map for a moment. 
It has already been stated that the headwaters of the 
Orinoco and the Negro — the great northern affluent 
of the Amazon — mingle, and the River Cassiquiare 
divides its waters between the two. How easy it 
would be to cut a canal uniting the navigable waters 
of the Orinoco and the Negro. Now, let the reader 
fancy the merchant ships dropping down in a few days 
from the Gulf ports of the United States to the mouth 



156 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

of the Orinoco, passing up the Orinoco and on into 
the Negro and the Amazon. Once in the Amazon, its 
southern tributaries from the south would open up 
communications with the very heart of the great Bra- 
zilian interior country, and another canal would open 
the way to the La Plata and to Buenos Ayres. 

This is no wild fancy, but would seem to be a com- 
mercial enterprise well within the bounds of the pos- 
sible. But what an agricultural and commercial em- 
pire that would open up, and within what easy reach of 
the great centres of trade in the United States. These 
vast plains of interior Brazil are going to be populated, 
and their peopling means wonderful commercial de- 
velopments. The trend of things seems to indicate 
that a large part of this trade will seek the markets of 
the United States. 

But do commercial relations carry with them no 
further obligations? Has a Christian man a right, be- 
fore his Master, to associate intimately with other men 
day by day, in business relations, and never speak to 
them of eternal things, and show them that he is in- 
terested in their spiritual welfare? Most certainly he 
has not? And is one of the great Christian nations 
of the earth, a nation looked upon as an example of 
Christianity in action, a nation coming into the most 
intimate and constant contact with nations not Chris- 
tian, to feel no responsibility for the religious welfare 
of those nations? Is such a nation not under the most 
sacred obligation to offer to the less fortunate peoples 
the unsearchable riches of the gospel — that treasure 
that is more precious than the gold of Ophir, and with 
which the onyx and the sapphire are net to be com- 
pared? Of course the nation in its political and gov- 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 157 

ernmental capacity can do nothing of the kind : but the 
people of the nation in their organized Christian capa- 
city are certainly under sacred obligations in this re- 
gard. In this way, the commercial bonds actual and 
possible that bind the people of the States to the 
people of Brazil emphasize Brazil's claim on North 
America. 

Another tie that binds the Latin American repub- 
lics to the United States and emphasizes their claim 
to the affectionate interest of the great northern Re- 
public in all that concerns their highest welfare is 
the Bond of Political AfUnity. The Rev. Thos. B. Wood, 
LL. D., in the chapter contributed by his to the vol- 
ume on "Protestant Missions in South America," pub- 
lished nine years ago, has some interesting and strik- 
ing paragraphs on the unconquerable desire of the 
Latin American republics to follow the example of 
their stronger sister in the North. No one who has 
lived even for a short time in one of these Latin re- 
publics can have failed to notice this striking fact. 
The Latin Americans see in the United States their 
ideal. They look with wonder upon the political sta- 
bility and the higher moral standards in political life; 
they are amazed at the marvelous industrial progress 
and at the commercial prosperity; they see so much 
that is desirable, and they long to make it theirs. 

Another interesting fact pointed out by Dr. Wood, 
in this connection, is that the repeated and recognized 
failures of the Latin- Americans through all these years 
to realize their ideals do not seem to quench their zeal 
in seeking to do so. They have copied the Federal and 
state constitutions of North America, and in some cases 
they have improved on them; they have fomiulated, in 



158 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

full logical consistency with those liberal political char- 
ters, codes of laws that rival in their perfection those 
of any country of the world; they have copied our sys- 
tem of public instruction, and have gone so far as to 
bring teachers from America to aid them in putting these 
theories and systems into practical operation. And yet 
when all has been done, they are painfully aware of the 
fact that the fruits of these constitutions, laws, and edu- 
cational systems are very different in South America 
from what they are in the United States. There is some- 
thing almost pathetic in the fact that the Latin- American 
sees so clearly what is admirable and desirable in the in- 
stitutions of North America; that he so longs to realize 
those blessings in his own national life ; that he makes 
efforts and sacrifices to accomplish this and yet is con- 
scious that he has failed. He knows that he has failed, 
and he wonders why. 

Some who look on at these oft-repeated efforts and 
failures, know the reason thereof. They see that liberal 
constitutions and wise laws fail to bring to Latin America 
the blessings they have brought to Protestant America, 
and they know the reason. They understand the truth 
so forcefully enunciated by Prof. Laveleye in his tract 
on "The Future of Catholic Peoples" to the effect that 
the religious life and ideals of a people influence most 
powerfully the institutions of their social and political or- 
ganization, and they know that Roman Catholicism does 
not form in the national life a basis for free institutions 
and progressive development such as is formed by 
Protestant Christianity. The Protestant missionary and 
the deep thinker among the Brazilians understand this, 
and some day the Brazilians and the Latin American^ 
generally will come to understand it. And when they 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 159 

do come to understand the real cause of their political 
and social troubles, there will be a tremendous drift 
away from Romanism and toward Evangelical Chris- 
tianity. The history of Northern Europe in the i6th 
century may then be repeated in South America. 

Does not this remarkable political affinity between 
Papal South America and Protestant North America, 
this unquenchable desire on the part of the Latin Ameri- 
cans to emulate the example of their brothers of the great 
Republic of the North, make them particularly ready to 
learn what is the cause of the weakness seen on one 
hand and the strength seen on the other? And does not 
this place upon the Christian people of North America 
a solemn obligation to give to their brothers in the South 
the one thing needful to make them stable and strong? 
Once let Brazil get the principles of Protestant Chris- 
tianity instilled into the life of her people; once let the 
iron of those rigid doctrines of the Evangelical Faith 
get into the blood of the nation, and we shall see a de- 
velopment in the intellectual, industrial and commercial 
life of the people that will amaze mankind. Shall we 
not give them this gospel? 

The important part that Brazil is so clearly destined 
to play in the solution of the great problems of mankind 
makes it im^perative that her people be brought under the 
influence of Evangelical Christianity. It is often said 
that the future of the world belongs to the Western 
Hemisphere and there is much to make one think that 
this is true. Surely one of the marvels of history is that 
one-fourth of the earth's land surface should have lain 
absolutely hidden from the eyes of the nations for thirty- 
five centuries after history's dawn. Was it not reserved 
for some wise purpose in God's providence? It was "in 



i6o The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

the fulness of time" that Columbus lifted the veil and 
discovered to the world the Western Hemisphere. 

The world had learned the lesson of its childhood and 
youth, and was ready for the sober activities of mature 
manhood. Lessons of government had been learned ; the 
despotism and tyranny of absolute monarchy had been 
discarded, and the principles of civil liberty and equality 
were being proclaimed : the era of democracy had dawned. 
Lessons of social science had been learned, and already 
some understood that all men are born free and equal, 
while the principles that were to undermine social servi- 
tude were beginning to be held sacred. Lessons of re- 
ligion had been learned also. The history of the race had 
proved that mankind cannot be atheistic, but must have a 
religious belief; the splendid polytheisms of the ancient 
world had been weighed in the balances and found want- 
ing ; and the monotheisms of Israel and Islam, without an 
atoning sacrifice, had shown themselves insufficient to 
satisfy the spirit of man, and to regenerate and ennoble 
the race. All these lessons had been learned when 
America lifted her hand from beyond the seas and beck- 
oned man to the new world, there to work out the great 
problems of his destiny free from the influence of old 
world traditions. 

It seems little less than miraculous, too, that America, 
which but little more than a century ago was a group of 
oppressed and exploited colonies of the European powers, 
should now be in the vanguard of the world's progress. 
America is to-day the asylum of the world's oppressed 
multitudes ; the world's school-master in the art of free 
government and in the science of sociology ; and the cen- 
tre of the world's religious activity to-day is found in 
the United States. There is much, therefore, to lead 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil i6i 

men to think that the world's future is in America, that 
the great problems of mankind — political, social, and re- 
ligious — are to be worked out in the Western Hemis- 
phere. But if these problems are to be solved in America, 
it is clear that the work cannot be satisfactorily done 
v/ithout the aid of the southern half of the continent. 
South America is capable of sustaining as great a popu- 
lation as North America. Teeming milions will, in com- 
ing years, people Brazil's plains and mountain valleys; 
and these millions must have a mighty influence on the 
character and destinies of the American continent. What 
shall that influence be ? Shall it be on the side of righte- 
ousness? or shall it be on the side of ungodliness and 
sin? 

There is just one influence that will make Brazil, or 
any other nation, a blessing to the world and a power 
for righteousness, and that influence comes from the 
gospel of Christ. Will then Protestant North America 
not give to Papal Brazil the blessings of Evangelical 
Christianity, and so make her an efllicient and powerful 
ally in fighting the battles for that righteousness that 
exalteth a nation, and in solving the great problems that 
are to affect the destinies of mankind? Statesmen and 
social economists foresee the influence Brazil must have 
in the history of the American continent, and they, as 
becometh wise men, are taking steps to bind together 
the two great American Republics with the cords of poli- 
tical and commercial union. Should the "children of 
light" be less wise in their generation? Should not the 
Evengelical Churches of North America see to it that 
these two great peoples are bound together with bonds 
of a common religious faith ? cords which, albeit invisible, 
are far stronger than the ties of blood or of commercial 
interest. 



i62 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

The appeal made in behalf of Brazil has, so far, been 
based partly on commercial, political, and sociological 
considerations, and to this extent the appeal is made to 
altruistic rather than to religious motives. But mission 
work must be based primarily on spiritual motives, and 
the appeal must be made in the name of the Lord. God's 
glory, and loyalty to his commands must be the great con- 
straining cause. Now let us turn our attention to the 
real motives of the great work. 

And in the first place, it may be said that America will 
probably be the great battle-ground between pure and 
apostate Christianity, and that, for this reason, great 
effort should be made to win Brazil and all Latin America 
to the Evangelical faith. Romanism is active and mili- 
tant ; and she, like Evangelical Christendom, is pushing 
her missionary enterprises among the heathen nations of 
the earth. She will win her victories in the future, as 
she has done in the past, leading the people to give up 
one form of paganism for another, to exchange a pagan- 
ism having a heathen basis for another having a Christian 
basis. But, finally, what will the issue be? Many think 
the heathen religions will disappear, and that the world 
will be divided, religiously, between the two forms of 
Christian faith — the true and the apostate. Then will 
the ''man of sin" stand face to face with the man of the 
gospel. Then the beast of Rome will rise up against Him 
who wears upon his thigh the sword of the Spirit. 

Where the final conflict will be waged, no word 
of prophecy has made clear. But many things in mod- 
ern and contemporar}^ history would lead one to 
believe that the field of battle in this final struggle 
between truth and error, between Protestant and 
Papal Christianity, will be in America. The greatest 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 163 

migratory movements' of to-day are among Roman 
Catholic peoples of Europe. Millions of them are com- 
ing to America every year. Many of them are finding 
homes in the United States, but many of them are 
occupying the unpeopled lands of Brazil and of Latin 
America. If the Evangelical forces are growing 
stronger year by year in the Western Hemisphere, so 
are the Romish hosts. These things may indicate that 
the armies are gathering to battle. If, then, the final 
struggle between light and darkness, between right- 
eousness and sin, is to be a struggle between the true 
and apostate forms of Christianity, between the Chris- 
tianity that takes God's Word as its only guide and 
authority and the Christianity that bows before the 
mandates of the Bishop of Rome ; if this is to be the 
final issue, and if America is to be the battle-ground, 
surely it behooves the Evangelical forces of Christen- 
dom to be diligent in preparation. Earnest, persistent 
and determined effort should be made to establish in 
Latin America many and strong centres of Evangeli- 
cal light and influence. If North America will always 
be, in large measure, what the people of the United 
States make it; so South America will, in the future, 
be largely what the people of Brazil — the central and 
the largest of her powers — make it; and for this rea- 
son, a loud and strong appeal is here and now sent 
forth to the Evangelical hosts of North America to win 
this fair land for Christ. 

Considerations like the foregoing will move the 
hearts of those who take a broader view of the inter- 
ests of God's Kingdom in the world, and will appeal 
strongly to some who look at these questions from 
the point of view of religious statesmanship; but 



164 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

zvhat moves the heart of the great and noble army of 
Christ's followers is the heart-hunger of the Brazilian 
people. The hunger of starving multitudes is ever the 
loudest call for help ; and the supreme appeal of the 
people of Brazil to the heart and conscience of the 
Christian people of North America and the world is 
the fact that they need the saving influences of the 
gospel of Christ, that they need, and need sorely, 
abundant supplies of the bread of life. 

The picture drawn in the preceding chapters of 
Romanism in Brazil, a picture the main features of 
which are taken not so much from the writings of 
missionaries as from those able Brazilians v^ho are 
not Protestants, is the fullest proof possible of Brazil's 
need of the gospel. Her educated classes, many of 
them men of rare talents, are, almost to a man, living 
in the cold mists of infidelity. The unlettered masses 
are the victims of priestcraft, having a form of godli- 
ness, without the regenerating and sanctifying power 
thereof; they are given over to a superstitious worship 
of saints and images much more akin to the paganisms, 
of ancient and modern times, than to the religion of 
Christ and his apostles ; theirs is a religion of forms 
and ceremonies, honoring God with their lips, while 
their hearts are far from him. If faith without works 
is dead ; if religion without m.orality is a mocking of 
God, then the Romanism of Brazil stands condemned. 
If Christ is the only mediator between God and man ; 
if there is no other name than his given among men, 
whereby we must be saved, then the religion of 
Brazil's m.asses is without the saving power of the 
gospel, and those masses stand in need of the Chris- 
tianitv of God's Word. Such is Brazil's need, and 




Rev. J. W. SHEPARD, 
President Bsptist College and Seminary, 
Rio de Janeiro. 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 165 

Brazil's need is Brazil's call. May it fall upon the 
ears and the hearts of God's people in all lands, con- 
straining them to labor and to pray for Brazil's 
redemption. 

Brazil is our Samaria. When the Saviour gave to 
His apostles the great missionary charter of the church, 
indicating the source of her power — the "Holy Ghost 
come upon you," stating her function — ''witnesses unto 
me," and outlining her field — "Jerusalem and Judea, 
Samaria, and the uttermost part of the earth," He 
placed Samaria before the pagan lands of the world. 
There were geographical and religious reasons for this 
order. Samaria was the nearest neighbor to the Jew, 
and her religion was a corrupt and apostate form of 
the Jewish faith. The Samaritans, too, had in them 
the making of fine evangelists, as witnesseth the Sama- 
ritan woman who left her waterpot, and went her way 
into the city, and saith to the men, "Come, see a man 
which told me all things that ever I did : is not this 
the Christ?"; and when converted, they would be as 
zealous as their Jewish brethren in publishing salva- 
tion unto the ends of the earth. And just so is Latin 
America a Samaria to Protestant North America. It 
lies just at her doors: one has but to cross the Rio 
Grande between Texas and Mexico, or the Strait of 
Florida between Key West and Havana, to reach the 
field. Romanism, too, the religion of Latin America, 
And who could doubt, in view of what they are doing 
is a corrupt and apostate form of true Christianity, 
for the evangelization of their own peoples, that the 
Latin Americans, once brought into the fold of Evan- 
gelical Christendom, would make splendid compan- 



i66 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

ions in arms for the conquest of the rest of the world 
for Christ? 

Dr. Dabney's idea that the Roman Catholic nations 
should have been won before the evangelization of the 
heathen world was undertaken has been mentioned; 
but the time for this program was seen to be past. We 
do not ask for the first place or the largest share on 
the great movement for the redemption of the world ; 
we only ask that the Church of Christ, in her great 
haste to reach the uttermost part of the earth, should 
not forget or neglect Samaria that lies just at her 
doors. 

Another fact that lends great emphasis to Brazil's 
appeal to Protestant America is that the other churches 
of Evangelical Christendom are bending their energies 
to the evangelization of other lands and are doing noth- 
ing for Brazil. If we look to the great mission fields 
of Asia, Africa and the South Seas, we find the Chris- 
tian world at work there, all pushing forward the great 
enterprise. When we turn our eyes toward Brazil,' we 
see no representatives of Australian churches, and no 
representatives of European churches — not even the 
Canadian churches, although American, are repre- 
sented here. In the partition of the mission fields 
among the churches engaged in the work, Brazil 
seems to have been left as the peculiar field of activity 
of the Evangelical churches of the United States. If 
such be the case, let it not be forgotten that a sacred 
trust implies a solemn obligation. It is not forgotten, 
in this connection, that there are one or two small 
independent agencies, representing Canadian and Brit- 
ish Christians that are doing valuable work in Brazil. 
All these efforts are gratefully recognized, and God is 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 167 

praised therefor; but the bulk of the work must nat- 
urally be done by the great Mission Boards, operating 
through their regular channels; and no European, 
Canadian or Australian Board is represented in the 
missionary work in Brazil. If, then, the bulk of this 
work in Brazil is to be done by the Christian people 
of the United States, let the words of the Master sink 
deep into the hearts of those Evangelical churches, and 
let them hearken unto the Lord when he says *'and 
ye shall be witnesses unto me ... in Samaria." 

The success of the work adds force to the appeal. 
Chapter VII tells of the fruits of victory, and the his- 
tory of these fifty years of Evangelical Missions in 
Brazil gives a new meaning and adds a new force to 
the appeal now sent forth. When we consider what 
has been accomplished by means so few and so feeble, 
against odds so great, in the short space of a half- 
century, we are amazed, and our first thought is: 
What hath God wrought!" Much has been said in 
this book of Brazil's needs; the success of the work 
is the clear proof of the fact that there is a need, that 
the Brazilian is conscious of his need, and that he 
recognizes more and more that in the pure gospel of 
Christ he finds what will satisfy his needs. This suc- 
cess calls forth another reflection, too. If so much 
has been done in so short a time, by instruments so 
few and so feeble, what may we not hope to see accom- 
plished when Evangelical North America becomes 
fully aroused to her great opportunity, and sends forth 
her sons and daughters in larger numbers to enlist 
in the campaign for Brazil's emancipation from the 
servitude of Rome? Cheered by the history of the 
past fifty years, we turn to the future, our faces bright 
with hope, and dream of what greater things God will 



1 68 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

accomplish in the next half-century. Then, as hope 
rises on the wings of faith, we look further into the 
future, and see the glad crowning day, when this 
warm-hearted and generous people of Brazil, subdued 
by the arms of spiritual warfare, shall gladly enthrone 
our Saviour in their hearts, and crown him Lord 
of All. 

We have now reached the last paragraph of our 
book. Through eight chapters the reader has been led. 
He has seen Brazil, the land of the beautiful bay, the 
land of great possibilities. Having seen the land, he 
has been introduced to its genial and quick-witted in- 
habitants, and has followed them through four cen- 
turies of their history — colonial, imperial and repub- 
lican. Through the eyes of the missionary and 
through the eyes of non-Protestant writers in Brazil, 
he has seen the moral, social, and religious needs of 
the people that can be satisfied only by the influences 
that come from the gospel of Christ. Having seen 
the need of the Evangelical Invasion, he has been al- 
lowed to review the forces in action, to inspect the 
weapons of the spiritual warfare, and to see some of 
the more important fruits of victory. Convinced of 
the need, and cheered by the results of a half-century 
of the warfare, he has been told of the unfinished cam- 
paign, and has heard the call for reinforcements issued 
and emphasized. 

And now, with a prayer that this little volume may 
bring a blessing to thousands who by it may be led 
to give their prayers, their sustenance, and themselves 
to the hastening of the day of victory; and that, 
through those prayers and offerings, the blessings of 
the gospel may the more speedily come to Brazil, the 
author bids his readers adieu. 









MCEIO 

-.^ <^*VEewedo 

^alagoinha 

AMARO 
^ S. SALVADOR 
^'^'^(AOETOOOSOS'^''''® 




''"'''8'' -=c CAP>*> 



RIOFORMOSO 



CAPAVCLLAS 



MAP OF BRA^II^. 

MISSION STATIONS OF T§iE 

PRESBYTERSAN CHURCH IN THE 
U.S. SHOWN BY BLACK SQUARES 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 169 



APPENDIX I. 



I. CHURCHES AND MEMBERSHIP. 

1. Presbyterians and Independent Presbyterians. 

Organized Churches, 151; Congregations, 100+ ; 
Membership, 15,000^ approximately. 

2. Methodist Episcopal Church in Brazil. Two Con- 

ferences. 
Organized Churches, 46; Congregations, — . Many 
of these 46 churches represent pastoral charges 
comprising a number of congregations. Mem- 
bership, 6,000^ approximately. 

3. Baptist Church in Brazil. 

Organized Churches and congregations, 150, approxi- 
mately. Membership, 6,000, approximately. 

4. The Brazilian Episcopal Church. 

Organized Churches, 15 ; Congregations, — . Mem- 
bership, 1,000 to 1,100. 

5. Congregational Church. 

Organized Churches, 8; Congregations, — . Mem- 
bership, 1,000, approximately. 

6. Evangelical Mission of South America. 

Organized Churches, 9; Congregations, — . Mem- 
bership, together with other Interdenomina- 
tional Societies, 500. 

The above figures show that in Brazil there are, at present, more 
than 400 pastoral charges, churches and congregations in 
process of organization, with a membership of Evangelical 
Christians of 30,000, approximately. 



170 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

II. WORKERS. 

1. Missionaries. 

(a) Presbyterian, North, 

Ordained, 10 ; unordained men, i ; wives, 9 ; 
unmarried women, 5. Total, 25. 

(b) Presbyterian, South. 

Ordained, 11; unordained men, 2; wives, 9; 
unmarried women, 9. Total, 31. 

(c) Methodist. 

Ordained, 15; wives, 15; unmarried women, 
19. Total, 49. 

(d) Baptist. 

Ordained, 16 ; unordained men, 2 ; wives, 18 ; 
unmarried women, i. Total, ZT- 

(e) Episcopal. 

Ordained, 6; wives, — ; unmarried women, — . 
Total, 6+. 

(f) Congregational. 

Ordained, 5 ; wives, — ; unmarried women, — . 
Total, 5+. 

(g) Evangelical Mission of South America. 

Men, 8 ; married women, 4 ; unmarried women, 
3. Total, 15. 

Totals : Ordained, 71 ; unordained men, 5 or more ; 
wives, 55 ; unmarried women, 2)7 • Total of mis- 
sionaries, ' including three Y. M. C. A. Secre- 
taries, two of them married, 173. 

2. Natives. 

(a) Presbyterian. 

Presbyterian Church of Brazil, or- 
dained ministers 35 

Independent Presbyterian Church, 

ordained ministers 14 

Total Presbyterians 49 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 171 

(b) Methodist — ordained ministers 31 

(c) Baptist — ordained ministers 25 

(d) Episcopal — ordained ministers 14 

(e) Evangelical Mission of South America 

— ordained ministers 3 

(f) Congregational — ordained ministers. . 2 

(g) Y. M. C. A. Secretary i 

Total nmnber natives actively engaged.... 125 

The Presbyterians have: 

Missionary workers 56 

Native workers 49 

Total of Presbyterians 105 

The Methodists have: 

Missionary workers 49 

Native workers 31 

Total Methodists 80 

The Baptists have: 

Missionary workers 37 

Native workers 25 

Total of Baptists — 62 

The Episcopalians have : 

Missionary workers 6+ 

Native workers 14 

Total of Episcopalians 20+ 

The Evangelical Mission of South America : 

Missionary workers 15 

Native workers 3- 

Total of E. M. S. A — 18 

The Congregationalists have: 

Missionary workers 5 

Native workers 2 

TotaL of Congregationalists.... 7 



172 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

The Young Men's Christian Association: 

Missionary workers 5 

Native workers i 

Total of Y. M. C. A — 6 

Total number of workers, missionary and native 298 

Distributing Brazil's 20,000,000 of population among these 
workers, we have these astonishing figures. Each worker, native 
and missionary, has a parish in Brazil of about 70,000 souls. Each 
ordained worker, native and missionary, has a parish of 100,000 
souls. Each missionary worker has 112,000 as his share, and 
each ordained missionary has 280,000 in his parish. In China, 
each missionary worker has 100,000 as his part; in India, he has 
65,000; in Brazil, 112,000. Brazil almost twice as destitute as 
India. 

But this is not the most striking contrast. In China, each 
missionary worker has a parish of about 1,100 square miles, a 
territory a little smaller than Rhode Island. The missionary 
worker in India must cover a parish of only 350 square miles, 
about a third the size of that of his brother in China. The mis- 
sionary worker in Brazil, however, has a parish of 15,000 square 
miles, or about the size of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and 
Connecticut combined. 

The figures thus presented are somewhat startling, but the 
figures do not tell the whole story; for the missionary worker in 
Brazil, instead of having the railroad facilities he would have in 
covering such a parish in New England, must make his way for 
the most part on horseback. Truly has South America been 
characterized as "The Neglected Continent." 

In two or three instances, when accurate and complete figures 
cannot be given, a plus sign ( + ) is added, as, for example, in 
giving the number of missionary workers in the Episcopal force. 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 173 
APPENDIX II. 



THE RELATION OF THE MISSIONARY TO THE NATIVE CHURCH. 

Let him bear in mind always that he and his work belong to 
a passing phase of the enterprise of the world's redemption, and 
that the native worker is the real and permanent factor in the 
problem. His attitude of mind and spirit toward his native 
brother should find adequate expression in the Baptist's words, 
"He must increase, but I must decrease." The true missionary- 
labors to build up a church that will not need his aid and care; 
and the more rapidly he succeeds in doing this^ the more suc- 
cessful will his work be considered, the greater will be his 
honor. The attitude should be that of one who stands ready 
to help when needed ; but who never seeks to do for the native 
brethren what they can do for themselves. As helper, guide, and 
counsellor, he will be heard with respect, deference and affection ; 
his aid will be valuable. As a self-constituted ecclesiastical 
censor, he will, do harm. 

There are, however, other relations that need to be clearly 
understood, other problems that need to be wisely solved if we 
would hasten the end of the great campaign in Brazil. These 
relations are those between the mission organisations and the 
native church courts. 

Out of these relations arise serious problems ; and if there is 
to be a great advance movement; if the mission forces now on 
the field are to receive large reinforcements, as should be the 
case in view of the great revival of missionary interest in the 
home churches, then it is important that these relations be 
clearly understood, that these problems be wisely solved. The 
lack of clear understanding and of wise solution has greatly 
hindered the work at times. 

In the early days of mission work in a country, these problems 
do not arise; they are incident to the more advanced stages of 
the work, and the evidences of no small amount of success 
attained in the enterprise. The more vigorous the young native 
church, the more acute the questions are apt to be. In the early 



174 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

days or yeais of mission history, the missionary exercises all 
ecclesiastical functions; he is pastor, session, presbytery, all in 
one. But when churches are organized and placed under native 
pastors and sessions ; when congregations have multiplied and 
ecclesiastical courts must have jurisdiction: then It is that rela- 
tions between the mission and the native church courts may be- 
come strained, and serious problems may arise. The solution may 
be sought along any one of three lines. The missionaries, being 
the older men, and having control of finances, may retain in their 
hands most of the authority and management : this is unwise 
and suicidal, for it dwarfs the life of the native church and delays 
the very thing the missionary should seek to hasten. — namely, the 
building up of an autonomous native church. On the other hand. 
the missionaries may throw all responsibility upon the native 
organization, and give themselves entirely to advance work as 
evangelists : this, too, is not wise, for the young native pastors 
need the help of the older and more experienced men who have 
behind them the history and traditions of centuries of Evangeli- 
cal faith and practice. The third possible solution seeks to estab- 
lish some kind of union and co-operation between the mission- 
aries and the native church. The missionaries may unite with 
the native ministers in forming native courts, or the courts may 
be organized v/ith only the native ministers, the missionaries at- 
tending as advisory members. 

This third solution is the one generally adopted, but it gives 
rise to many anomalous situations. If the missionary is a full 
member of the native court, he is a servant serving two masters. 
His movements are directed by the mission, representing the 
home Board ; yet, at the same time, a church court is supposed 
to have the direction of the movem.ents and the work of its 
members. If the missionary is not fully identified ecclesiastically 
with the native court, the anomaly changes form, but does not 
cease to exist. We then have a minister performing all the minis- 
terial functions of preaching, discipline, organization of churches, 
within the jurisdiction of a court that has no direction or control 
over his movements. The church he organizes, shepherds and 
disciplines is supposed to belong to the jurisdiction of the superior 
court. 3-et the court has no review or control. This is truly 
anomalous. But the missionary is not the only man who is in an 
anomalous position. The mission employs native evangelists and 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 175 

secures the services of native pastors to care for churches he has 
organized. The power of the purse is supposed to carry with it 
some power of direction and control, yet this native pastor or 
evangelist is a regular member of his church court, and pre- 
sumably under its direction. It is not hard for an ecclesiastic 
to see how complications, many and irritating, may arise under 
such circumstances. They have arisen in times past in Brazil 
and in other mission fields, and it requires great tact and ski-11, 
with much of the spirit of prudence and humility to avoid con- 
stant friction. 

Many of the serious and difficult complications on mission 
fields grow out of these delicate and anomalous situations ; and if 
the Boards are to make large advances in the great work, increas- 
ing the number of missionaries and the amount of funds used 
in the enlargement of the work done through the agency of the 
native workers, it behooves them to study anew these questions 
with a view to avoiding the difficulties of the past for which 
neither the missionaries nor the natives can be said to be re- 
sponsible. The difficulties have grown out of the conditions. 

The most satisfactory solution yet found is cne adopted by the 
Central Brazil Mission of the Northern Presbyterian Church, one 
of the two missions of that church in Brazil. The plan has been 
in operation several years, and is highly recommended by the 
missionaries in that field, as well as by all the native ministers 
who have worked in connection with it. It establishes a modus 
operandi between the mission and the presbytery, defining clearly 
the rights of each. A scheme of aid from the mission to the 
nascent congregations is established, and a natural and easy 
method by which the congregations formed may pass from the 
care of the mission to the jurisdiction of the presbytery is ar- 
ranged. This plan was prepared as a working basis of relations 
between the mission and a presbytery; but, with modifications, 
it could doubtless be applied as well in the case of a mission and 
a Methodist court, or between a mission and a Baptist congrega- 
tion. This plan of the Central Brazil Mission will probably serve 
as the basis of relations between the missions and the native 
church courts when the Evangelical churches enter upon their 
enlarged plans of action under the new inspiration of missionary 
zeal. 

It may be well to mention here that, as a matter of history 



1/6 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

all of the native churches organized in Brazil, so far, have been 
organized on the plan of the full union of natives and mission- 
aries. The Presbyterian Synod organized in 1888, set the ex- 
amples, and all others have followed it. The missionaries are 
full members of the courts, taking part in all, discussions and 
voting on all questions. There have been several movements 
started with a view to changing the status^ but these movements 
have never succeeded. The personal convictions of the writer 
are against these full unions : he believes the missionaries would 
be able to help the native courts more efficiently as corresponding 
members, having the privilege of the floor for discussion and 
counsel, but not having the right of vote. There is much, how- 
ever, to be said on both sides of the question ; and it is one thing 
to oppose the adoption of a certain modus vivendi, and quite 
another to urge its discontinuance, once it has been adopted. 
After twenty-one years of co-operation on the present basis, it 
would be a great mistake to insist on an abrupt change of rela- 
tions. Nothing of the kind should be done now without full and 
frank conference with the native courts ; and the preferences of 
the native brethren should have great weight in deciding the 
matter. 

In view of the plans for enlarged effort, however^ it might be 
wise to have the question taken up de novo, and thoroughly can- 
vassed, in full and frank conference between native workers, mis- 
sionaries and secretaries. There should be the most cordial 
understanding between the mission and the native churches on 
all these questions, for the great work can be hastened only by the 
hearty co-operation of all the forces in action. 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 177 



APPENDIX III. 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION AND SELF HELP. 

The necessity of educational, work at the present stage of 
missionary enterprise in Brazil is unquestionable and the value 
of this work, if well directed, is incalculable, but a serious prob- 
lem arises in connection with it. 

The existence of good Evangelical schools suitable for meeting 
the needs of the native church in Brazil does not entirely solve 
the problem. It is necessary that the advantages of these schools 
be placed within reach of the people for whom they are primarily 
intended. It has already been stated that Brazil's population is 
sparse, and it should also be said that the majority of the church 
people live in the country districts. An Evangelical school 
cannot be placed within reach of every home; and to place the 
advantages of Christian education within the reach of any con- 
siderable number of the Christian community, educational centres 
must be established. But this means boarding schools, and board- 
ing schools mean large expense. In some of the oriental countries 
a boy or girl can be fed, clothed, and housed for a pittance. 
Not SO' in Brazil : living is expensive. And while the expenses 
incident to the running of a boarding school are heavy, the large 
majority of the church people are too poor to bear the expense 
of educating a child. 

What, then, shall, be done? Shall the schools be supported 
from mission funds, and boys and girls be given bed and board 
and instruction gratis? By no means. No Board can stand the 
drain entailed upon its' funds in the education of the hundreds 
of boys and girls who would clamor for admission. Besides this 
eleemosynary education is not a good basis on which to build 
character: it relaxes the fibre of manhood and develops a para- 
sitical spirit. 

This question is very vitally related also to the problem of 
preparing a native ministry. These native pastors and evangelists 



178 The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 

are an absolute necessity to the success of the mission vvork^ but 
how shall they be provided? Most of the young fellows who offer 
themselves for this v.'ork come from homes of comparative 
poverty, and their families can do but little, often nothing at all, 
toward their education. What shall be done? Shall they be 
educated at the expense of the missions or of the native church? 
Hardl3^ Aside from the undesirability of eleemosynary educa- 
tion, even for ministerial candidates ; aside from the fact that 
many of the lads who offer themselves as candidates for the 
ministry have very hazy ideas as to what constitutes a call to 
the ministry, and a considerable number of them give up before 
reaching the goal; aside from all these considerations, the train- 
ing of these young men would be a heavy expense to the missions, 
while the native church needs all of its funds for pastoral support 
and for evangelistic work, and can ill afford to spend two or 
three hundred dollars a year for from five to eight years to give 
one of these lads academic and college training. 

All of these considerations militate strongly against the S5^s- 
tem of eleemxosynary education, v/hether at the expense of the 
mission, or at the expense of the native church. But what shall 
be done? The church must have native pastors and evangelists; 
and the youth of the Evangelical Church must have educational 
advantages. 

After twenty years of close and constant contact with the 
v/ork in almost all of its different phases, the writer is convinced 
that the only solution of the educational problem of the Evan- 
gelical Churches of Brazil is to be found in the Industrial School, 
organized on the principal of self-help. The extent to which the 
industrial element should be developed, and the exact direction 
given to it, will depend largely upon local conditions. The ideal 
plant is one near a sm.all tov/n where living is not expensive, 
and where a small farm can be secured on reasonable terms. The 
pUiiil.i should grow most of the supplies needed, and should do 
St i.ir/je part of the domestic work. This will reduce expenses 
to a miiiimum. If the work of class-room and industrial de- 
partmen iG well done, the school will always command the 
patronag i of a considerable number who can and will gladly pay 
mil rates, and this, too, will do much toward defraying the 
-,-;-v'nses of the institution. Given a plant ready for efficient 



The Evangelical Invasion of Brazil 179 

work, the school, up to the point of high-school training, can, 
under efficient management, easily be made self-supporting 

The reader has already seen in Chapter VII the account of 
several enterprises now in successful operation, particularly the 
one with which the writer is most familiar, the Presbyterian 
school at Lavras, in which we are reaching toward an approxi- 
mation of the ideal just set forth. One of the great needs of 
Brazil, however, is for more educational institutions along these 
lines with far more liberal resources and more ample equipment 



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